The Same Old, Same Old

Each day’s landing at the shop, I’m greeted by fellow tradesmen with the questioning phrase, “What’s happin?” As if the expectation something new is at hand. When in North Carolina at the breakfast diner, the greeting phrase is primarily: “what ya into today?” I suppose for the same or similar reason. I will say that ninety percent of the time the answer is the same: “Same ol’, same ol,'" which always seems more than to satisfy the questions asked in both places. I've been thinking about my incessant answer for some time and how I am fostering a very superficial and incomplete conversation.  It's probably due to the fact that I have no desire to take time from my schedule, interrupt my train of thought, or converse about something insignificant to me or probably them.  An answer Bettyann never has allowed in her question, "how did your day go."  

In reality, every day is a new day. I realize I’m in the beginnings of a new year already filled with beginnings and endings. Didn’t I begin 2018 with a certain hope—another year, another chance, a new day? But, as I begin to ruminate, I realize I am carrying the same longings, the same resolutions, I don’t want to forget the same fears and hurts. A more cynical riposte (new word) thus might be: Is there ever really anything new about a new year? 

When the past or present seems so broken that it's shards seem to reach well into the future, new days are often filled more with fear and regret than with promise. I remember the times when I could see the end of a difficult situation, but I could not see a beginning unmarred by the residue of the past. ”Is there really such a thing as new day?” was the question I held disconsolately (new word). Then I sensed a leading the other morning of Lamentations where I began to drink from the cup of hope from most unlikely Lamentations three. 

"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul,

‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

Spoken in a time of exile, I can just imagine these words were as pungent for the people they were spoken to as they have been for me this past week. More nourishing this morning as I down them. O that I will continually hold as fast to the assurance of things new, as this ancient writer, even in the midst of a situation that blinded Jeremiah from any vision of what that could possibly mean. In all of the suffering, of which I’m not, and sorrow surrounding him, of which I am not accustomed, there is still a bit of cognitive dissidence when it comes to the unreasonableness of this prophet of old, admitting he saw no way out. With all the damage that had been done, with the uncertainty of exile, and the finality of a destroyed Jerusalem, I for one, cannot point a finger in blame at him if he had seen new mornings as nothing but a cynical promise of more of the same.

Yet this was not the lament on this old man's lips. Written in the style of an ancient funeral song, his words, though consumed with death, called to his God by name: The steadfast love of Yahweh never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. Another translation reads, Because of Yahweh’s great love we are not consumed; his mercies are new every morning. What I think Jeremiah was more than likely able to ascertain in the midst of his own lamentation is that only an all-powerful God can truly make a beginning. After rumination, my conviction is that new mornings, new years, in and of themselves, are useless and worse than useless if they are not seen as belonging to the one who makes all things new.  I must remind myself, here, that it has only been the last few decades I became pregnant with this belief.  And I still suffer with birthing pangs.

I’m learning that, often, it will be in the midst of a definitive ending that this particular God brings new beginnings to life. Pastor, last Sunday, in his mentioning of a poet, reminded me of a poem called “Ash Wednesday,” where T.S. Eliot describes redemption as a figure moving about ashes and endings.

 The new years walk, restoring

Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring

With a new verse the ancient rhyme. 

Redeem the time. 

Redeem the unread vision in the higher dream. 

I’m reminded of the times I would take a February sabbatical to a monastery, and inevitably found restoration. It was a place that facilitated taking a vow of silence, long walks, meals and devotion without words or distractions. This allowed time to pass more slowly, my listening to become more acute to the Voice, and my promised visions redeemed.  

I’m not certain, but perhaps the hope promised in new mornings, the assurance of new mercies and new beginnings, is only a hint of the promise of a certain redemption, a new earth.  I do know in this higher dream, God is the dreamer, redeeming worlds, redeeming time; God’s redemption is the great love that prevents me from being consumed. 

I think it no coincidence that the last words of God’s story are aimed at describing the beginning of something more than I can possible see now. Depicting the vision of “a new heaven and a new earth,” St. John reports a voice crying out: “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

Loving Father, Everlasting God, this day is new only because it is a day made by Your Devine visions and beginnings. I testify that You are the God who came to live among mortals, the God who offers Himself as a new portion every morning. I desire Your presence because in it I find my hope of newness.  Amen