It's enough to paralyze anyone.
However, it has always been that way. As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is nothing new under the sun. As the song writer tells us, the words change, but the melody lingers on. This is a road that others have walked; these are situations that other cultures have faced and God has been there for countless numbers who have found meaning in something outside themselves.
Maybe that's why I enjoy reading history. Maybe that's why the Boomers are suddenly interested in genealogy and antiques. It reinforces the awareness that we are not alone. It is not all up to us. Not only should we trust people over 30, but maybe those three or four times that number have better answers.
Good ideas, but it is easy to get stuck in this kind of thinking. The past seems safer because we can see how it all turned out. Therefore, the new is distrusted and we cling to the familiar. Change becomes the enemy.
This too bad because God doesn't run in place and neither should we.
Each day the Holy Spirit offers new wisdom and new perspectives if we are open and willing to listen. God tells Isaiah in chapter 49, "See, I am doing a new thing. Will you not take note of it? I will make a way in the wasteland and rivers in the dry country." This doesn't sound so farcical when we consider that 6 million year old seashells have been found in the California desert.
Today does not have to be like yesterday. Today offers new possibilities because the Holy Spirit lives in us and has given us "every spiritual blessing under the heavens" - if we believe it. Life offers a clean slate if we are willing to consider that as St. Paul writes in Galatians, "it is not I who live, but Christ who lives within me." Nothing is too big for God to handle.
What new thing will there be to take note of today?
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