Matters of Church and State

NEW BEGINNINGS

         With its falling leaves and other signs of seasonal change, September is often seen as verdant nature’s way of waving goodbye until next spring.  But, I like to think of autumn as a time of new beginnings:  Our kindergarteners are starting a brand new adventure, middle school children are making the big jump to high school, presenting new challenges to themselves and certainly to their parents.  And many of you recently dropped off your children at college, a wrenching and searing experience quite like no other for both children and parents alike.

         For some, this is a time of adjustment to a new neighborhood and new schools.  Others to new love relationships.  To a new job.  In some sense, our lives are always becoming, regardless of age, whether we have just recovered from a serious illness or are mourning the loss of a spouse or partner.

 

         As in so many areas of life, poets best capture the spiritual phenomenon and the challenges of new beginnings, as poet John O’Donoghue does in this poem, “For A New Beginning:”

In out of the way places of the heart

Where your thoughts never think to wander

This beginning has been quietly forming

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire

Feeling the emptiness grow inside you

Noticing how you willed yourself on

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the grey promises that sameness whispered

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent

Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream

A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.”

Jerry