New Year’s Reflections

Its New Year’s Eve. I’ve just returned from doing the grocery shopping. While wandering through Aldi, I’ve had Rage Against the Machine blasting through my earbuds… enjoying the bubble of space it provides from the hordes of humanity all trying to get a great deal on bananas…
And as I leave, Renegades comes on, and it seems apropos for New Year’s, so I thought I would collect my thoughts and share them…

So, Renegades goes like this:

Since the Prehistoric ages and the days of ancient Greece
Right down through the Middle Ages
Planet earth kept going through changes
And then no renaissance came, and times continued to change
Nothing stayed the same, but there were always renegades
Like Chief Sitting Bull, Tom Paine
Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcom X
They were renegades of their time and age
The mighty renegades

Now renegades are the people with their own philosophies
They change the course of history
Everyday people like you and me
We’re the renegades we’re the people
With our own philosophies
We change the course of history
Everyday people like you and me

It seems to me that the passing of time can feel like an insurmountable tide. Its easy to get swept away… to just float along with the current, not necessarily willingly, but purely because the pull seems irresistible. And at significant moments, like the turn of the year, it can feel overwhelming to try to think of what the new season should be – could be, might be, if only I could get my act together enough to make it great.

And then, I’m reminded by the words of Afrika Bambaataa, through the mouth of the prophet Tom, of that great truth: I am surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses – everyday humans who have walked the path before me, who have faced down their moments, who have stared up at the wave of history bearing down at them, and who have done their thing and changed the course of history. Witnesses whose stories of faith, or rebellion, or patience, or defiance, show me the way forward. I doubt that many of them knew what it was that they were doing, how significant the path they were forging would be for the rest of us.

So this New Year’s, I make no resolutions to change. I make no proclamations of grand overhauls of any of my life.
This New Year’s, I’m choosing to be mindful of my own journey. To be thankful for the warriors and renegades who have walked the path before me. To be hopeful for the ones who come after me.