2021 Closing a Challenging Year

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

We seemingly begin each new year with hopes, dreams, goals, and those nefarious resolutions that are oft whisked away in the buzz of living in an electronic age.  Some of us attempt to reclaim the newness with other New Years, Chinese, Nowruz etc.  Anything to keep hope of unmet aspirations alive. Yet life moves on and we are met by the positive and negative.  Hopefully we’ve learned as in Tao, to not place an uneven emphasis on either.

That illusive quality of time seemed to dissolve in 2021, a numerological 5 year of change.  Just as many of us were celebrating a change in governance, a January political coup taught us how very fragile is our democracy. We witnessed a rise in hatred when love and acceptance were much needed. Conquering a deadly virus seemed within reach and yet we end this year with a troubling variant seemingly taking us back to ground zero.  Frustration over isolation and dramatic change in our usual routines and lifestyle has robbed many of sanity and resulted in concurring increases in violence.

In truth, on a global level, personal, and nationwide, we’ve had a helluva couple years.  It is as if we’ve all worn our clothing inside out and been exposed for our fragility and doused our fledging vanity. So very many isms have defined our daily lives that many feel battle fatigue.

Sorrow with so many deaths has pervaded many families and households. Beyond the usual turnover of aging and disease, the 2019 Virus and subsequent deaths have wrung us out emotionally, and for too many financially. We’ve awakened to a much harsher reality than our somewhat gilded existence prepared us for. Perhaps it is like being deposed.  We suffered the illusion of freedom, abundance, opportunity, growing equality, parity, and very high standard of living compared to the rest of the world. The division from the super haves and the growing have nots has diminished our world Light as a place to legally immigrate too for possibilities.

Yet, 2022 finds us still here!  Despite needed adjustments in socializing, community building, economics, politics, family unity or disparity, trust, and belief in the inherent good of humankind, we’ve had a global shift. So here we are, and the real question is, what are we each going to do about helping our fellow travelers on planet Earth thrive.  We now know we are not alone and what affects each of us, impacts the others.

Global Community will be part of the emphasis of this numerological 6 Year, 2022.  Return to some life affirming values and focus on other, not self, will be another.  Giving not receiving will be hailed as a must if we are all to share in the resources and inherent best interests of our global citizenry. Self, this, and that, must now take a back seat.  I and we will decrease in importance and emphasis on Us will be prominent. Housing may now require the sacrifice of individual domiciles to multiple and shared dwellings.  Less extravagance will need to prevail from richest to marginally less advantaged.

And the gift of the coming year? Service.  That will be the hallmark of saving the planet and our fragile occupants. As many people have discovered, good works and community involvement give us purpose. When other becomes the focus, the niggling issues of unhappiness, depression, grief, lack, abuse, etc. fades in import.

As we tomorrow, welcome 2022, let’s commit to finding our service and offering in all ways so that we can say when it is 12-31-2022, we gave of ourselves to foster hope, resurrect our planet, close our divides, restore global health, and brought that inimitable quality of Love to our precious sphere and its inhabitants.

May 2022 Bless each and every one of you with an important Service that you can provide to others along with health, wellness, and a sense of contentment knowing you contributed to the good of All.