Happy New Year

New Year Invitation

Welcome to 2012.  We haven’t had this much hype about end times and disasters since the millennium.  Maybe I’m a bit daffy, but sometimes the gloom and doom gets so intense it makes me giggle.  After all, we have survived through two millennia since the time of Jesus and many others before that, and hardly anyone talks about the predictions of Nostradamus any more.  Most of them either haven’t happened or haven’t been recognized and understood.  The human race appears to be addicted to the boogyman and we seem to relish bad news more than good.  Psychologists might have a good time with that one, but as for me, I prefer to giggle at the silliness.

In spite of an ingrained tendency to worry which was firmly implanted in my early environment, it’s impossible to keep me stuck in the nasties for very long.  My ease in the face of dire predictions comes from many years of studying and practicing New Thought principles.  In the beginning it all seemed too good to be true; Pollyanna-ish in fact.  Over time it became very obvious the practices work.  Here’s a test you can run yourself.  Make a list of your hopes, dreams, fears and habitual language over the last five years.  Compare that list to the life you are experiencing today.  You will find more similarities than can be accounted for by coincidence.  For instance, my father who refused to swear used words like ‘my aching back’ and ‘pain in the butt’ experienced five surgeries in those areas in his later years.

So, what is a ‘Pollyanna?’  Someone who is an eternal optimist and sees good in spite of appearances to the contrary.  That’s not easy; it takes discipline and practice but it is so worthwhile.  It’s much easier to follow a belief that promises redemption if you just obey, but if you wan to be the master of your soul, the discipline of New Thought is far more useful.

Here is a key to the invitation for 2012.  Like minds joined in focused intention can accomplish anything.  In the words of anthropologist Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

So, here is an invitation for 2012 that may make even the doomsayers celebrate.  Pay careful attention to everything that is good, globally and personally.  Then tell people about it.  Email your friends good news, post it on Facebook, talk it up every chance you get.  Two things will happen. 

1. Your outlook and therefore your life experience will dramatically improve.  I promise, but you have to make it a practice so deeply ingrained that it becomes automatic.  

2. Enough of us can create a tipping point that will lift the world out of problems that seem hopeless into a new and abundant way of life for all the children of the earth.

These are not new ideas.  The promise can be found in the book of Revelation, 21:1-2  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

It doesn’t matter if the change we need comes because it is destined and the Mayans predicted it, or if the change comes because we are using 2012 to make up our minds to change.  Lets just do it.