Mr. President
A few days ago, we lost an illustrious son of the land - President Jimmy Carter. Although the passing of the former president was not, in itself, a surprise to many, it still was a surprise. Humans like you and me like to hold on to life. Life is so important to us that we want to hold on to life. And it often does not matter the cost involved. We know we miss our loved ones who pass away, but we all hate the idea of losing a loved one, even when we believe that the deceased will be in a better place.
Many, many of us have experienced varying degrees of loss throughout the year. Some of these losses may have been unimaginable. Some may have been tolerable. But whatever the nature of the loss may have been, it is a loss, nonetheless, and it cuts through our core. I shared a few months ago about my experience with a cousin who passed away in Dubai. My brother who serves as a Member of Parliament lost his re-election. These are but a couple of significant losses of the past year.
As a community of faith, we have also had some losses. One of our biggest losses is Deacon Denise, when she was transferred to St. Peter’s. We lost Ed and Nicole, who had to relocate to Ohio. We lost Mike, who had to be focused more on his internship at Anne Arundel Medical Center, and we lost Aisha, which was also a big loss to us. We also lost a few of our parishioners, many of whom have been a part of this community for years.
I cannot begin to name the many losses that some of you have had to go through over the past year. I know some of us are still dealing with the effects of those losses. I am sure of this: that it is never easy to go through a loss, and I wouldn’t pretend to know how you feel. I can feel an ache like everyone else, but since I do not know how your ache feels, I can sympathize with you feel because I have felt an ache before, and I still ache over the personal losses of the past year.
Our lives are such that there has never been a year where we found a perfect solution to all of our problems. To quote a New Zealand prayer, ‘what has been done, has been done, what has not been done has not been done, let it be.’ Each year leaves us with work done and work left undone. Each year offers us the opportunity to thank God for things and to pray to God for things. There will be things to sing about and things to cry about - that’s the nature of our story with God.
I may not know what your struggles are, what your hopes for the New Year are, and what you desire for yourself and your loved ones. But there’s no doubt that a new year is like a sunrise in our lives. And similar to a line in a New Zealand prayer that I offer at every Vestry Meeting, each new day comes with new possibilities, and a new year offers us new possibilities.
Whatever the challenges of the past year may have been, one thing we know is that we cannot change the past. During my sabbatical, one of the books I read was The Courage To Be Disliked. It is a pretty interesting book, and I learned a lot from it.
This is what the authors, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, write about the past: "Regardless of what happened in the past, it is the meaning that is attributed to it that determines the way someone’s present will be." The authors go on to write: "Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our lives."
But a new day marks a new sunrise for us, and waking up to see the sunrise means we have one more chance to make the changes that we can for the sake of the future.
It is out of this conviction - that we ought to embrace new opportunities that help us move forward, and reject those things which will hold us back, take us back, or situate us in the dark chains of a past we cannot control - that I honor President Carter.
There’s so much that we know and have come to appreciate about President Jimmy Carter. As painful and disappointing as losing his re-election may have been for him, he didn’t see himself constrained by the events of the past. Instead, he embraced the possibilities of a new day - the sunrise that opens the window to all that is possible.
President Carter channeled his energy in serving the marginalized, both within this country and beyond. I imagine that at the back of his mind was this thought by Pablo Picasso: The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. And boy, did he do that! He gave, and gave, and gave, and gave. And he gave joyfully because the God he served, the God who proffers meaning to our lives and motivates us to embrace our purpose, loves a cheerful giver. He was a cheerful giver. And any cheerful giver knows all too well that whatever gift he or she possesses is meant to be given away.
President Carter said so many things but the one thing that in my mind captures his life is this: “Earlier in my life, I thought the things that mattered were the things that you could see, like your car, your house, your wealth, your property, your office. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve become convinced that the things that matter most are the things that you can’t see-the love you share with others, your inner purpose, your comfort with who you are.”
As we celebrate the life of President Carter and bid farewell to a man who exemplified new beginnings, I am thankful that a new year marks a new beginning for all of us. Truth is, we can never change the past, but by the grace of God, we can change the future because we dare to embrace new beginnings.
And so, with the gift of humility and gratitude, with prayers of hope, with faith and love, with the spirit of compassion and grace, and with a heart of fairness and justice, we will embrace the sunrise of a new day and a new year - because we know and believe that human possibilities are endless if we hold on to these gifts.
More than the endless possibilities, God comes to us and assures us, I am El Shaddai - the God who will bring our possibilities to life.
My beloved, I wish you and yours a very Happy New Year!
Manny+