The New Year: 2016

By REV JIM PURCELL

As this upcoming year represents my half-century mark, it is a time to take stock.

Am I where I thought I would be, doing what I thought I would be doing? Are there people in my life whom I thought would still be here? Am I living in that awesome place where I thought I would be at this age so long ago?

Well, as that list goes, I am not looking too badly. Not shabby at all. But, life didn't go the way I expected to get here, and most of my big plans for myself fell apart at one time or another. So, while I may be in that space, that place, where I thought I would be -- I took the strangest route I could have imagined.

Isn't that what life is anyway? Like the old saying goes: Men make plans and God laughs. Well, with me, he must have been rolling on the floor. So, why couldn't I have just taken the wide, easy path to where I am now? Why did it have to be so damn hard?

Well, adversity builds character, real character. When things get hard and times are trying, those are the moments when people learn empathy, forgiveness and real determination. No, it is not the kind of determination that Rocky showed against Draco in the montage scenes of Rocky IV. It is not the kind of determination to climb K2 or Mount Everest. Sometimes, the hardest thing to do for someone is to lose something they loved and treasured and then just wake up the next morning and get out of bed.

You know, as time clicks by, I have had a few friends and loved ones leave this world. Of course, being at about the same age, there are some of these friends and loved ones who died young. I noticed, though, that something my friends who passed early have in common is that they smoked and drank to excess. They lived life badly, being angry or scornful. They refused to change inwardly from their youth, and growing old and living crazy is not a match made in heaven. Not finding peace with yourself and living healthy will send you to heaven, for sure, but dying because of something like smoking too much is just prolonged suicide.  Someone is just biding their time, in that case, to leave this world as soon as they case.

For the past three years I have been working hard on my recovery from alcohol and anger, both of which consumed me for many years. I believed I was unfairly cheated, robbed of things that were precious to me. Well, there is something else about life we each learn at some point or other: It isn't fair, not in this world. Not yet. But, the knack to living is being able to go on and still search for whatever makes us happy.

More than money or position, land or jobs I always wanted peace and peace of mind. It has been a successful life in that I have found my piece of peace. I do not wish to to great things anymore, and while I like to work no one could characterize me as ambitious anymore. I learned that it is better to be at peace with one's self and their surroundings than to be fighting for the top spot.

In the end, somehow I have always knew, that we will not judge ourselves on how much money is in the bank, how big the car was, or how grand one's house was. In the end, what we each will judge ourselves is how we lived our lives, what we learned from those lives and how much peace we were each able to find in our hearts. Don't get me wrong -- big houses and cars are great. Yet, they are only things, which rust and breakdown and they do not shine forever. Only the human spirit shines for ever, and making that spirit brighter will shine forever.

Happy 2016 for everyone who visits the Chronicles, enjoy the year and blessings to you and yours.