Consider Our Blessings
Rev. Holly Baylies
UU Church of Wakefield MA
January 7, 2006

The older I get the more cynical I become when New Years resolutions are mentioned. I detest the thought of traversing the vast extent of my inner and external imperfections with the fantasy of actually following through on some regimen that will finally stick. My very last stint with the resolution scenario left me with, as you might recall, a very expensive Boston Crème Pie. And as far as exercise, I have put away those multi colored rubber bands that were guaranteed to leave you supple and fit, but instead, once stretched to their maximum, on the first try, it slipped off my foot and hurled itself across the room like a sling shot, and bulls eyed directly into my cut glass lamp. So needless to say I began searching for a different point of view, another way of addressing the New Years dilemma that was neither fattening nor destructive.

That opportunity arose nearly seven months later, last summer, and as with most worthwhile revelations, they never seem to occur when you need them! However, I would like to share this story with you, as it had an impact on how I intend to approach each New Year since that experience. It was a concert I will never forget.

For 46 years they had been singing together, making their debut in Boston to an audience of 8. Their music caught on and they sang us through the upheavals of the 60’s, through the Vietnam War, through Watergate, Chernobyl and Pollution; through every inhumanity we could conjure against one another. And in 46 years not one word has grown old.

The trio entered on stage, the lead singer was very overweight and walked haltingly with a cane. Her long blond hair and smiling face gleamed in the lights to reveal the look of common folk, everywhere, who gather at the Laundromat, or local greasy spoon to do their chores and shoot the breeze. On the street, not a second look would one give this aging, overweight, heroine of human justice.

She alluded to her size and condition with humor, and even recalled an incident upon boarding an airplane. A fellow passenger making conversation asked, “And what do you do?” “I’m a singer,” she answered.

“Do you sing opera, or with a band?” “I guess a band” she replied and settled into her seat, undisturbed and unrecognized for the remainder of the flight. As she laughed at herself, we all recalled the days when she would have been recognized no matter where she went.

Her physical self blended with the ordinary, her shell, aging and distorted bore no resemblance to that I had once admired, imitated and remembered every time I picked up my guitar and sang her songs of my youth.

But here she was so many years later, changed by illness and time and unknown circumstance, evolving in age and size and wisdom, who had shunned the face lifts and tummy tucks and presented her authentic unaltered self to a stunned audience. Their songs of compassion, peace and justice soon filled the theatre with a strength and determination that brought the audience to their feet. For Peter, Paul and Mary, it was the significance of their music that remained genuine and ageless, and ever more powerful and meaningful, than I ever remembered before.

This New Year, reflecting back on that wonderful concert that produced so much more for me than a memory of the songs of days gone by, I could not help but equate that day with the meaning of the Roman mythological face of St. Januarius, a mythical being who according to the early Christians was never a real person, but a compromise between St. Peter and Janus, the Roman God of gate keeping. Janus was a kind of celestial doorman, a custodian who opened and shut the pearly gates on command. The image of Janus could be found on both sides of most Roman doorways as Janus was the God of two faces. One face looked ahead and the other looked behind.

From his name came the month of January, again as in so much of Roman mythology, a melding of the Pagan and the Christian beliefs and customs.  

The Janus faces and the folk singer Mary Traverse, had two distinct characteristics in common this year, two very welcome blessings that altered my understanding of how New Years resolutions really need to work to be successful and meaningful. That of hindsight and that of insight. Peering into the past, through hindsight and taking what we do know about what works and what doesn’t; letting go of our fantasies and facing the realities, then applying that knowledge to create new insights on how to proceed with every aspect of our living creates an accurate and personal road map for moving ahead with confidence and commitment.

In New Years past most of us picked out a single characteristic, habit or imperfection to deal with or to alter and change rather than pausing to take an inventory of what we do know, where we have been and where we want to be and how our decisions affects us spiritually as well as physically and emotionally.

Hindsight in my case should have taught me long ago, that far more important than striving to look like the skinny kid of my childhood is to use that hindsight and the wisdom I have acquired to access what I have learned and to accept my true and authentic self, which far more fulfilling than may method of dropping a few pounds. The acquisition of every new and improved gizmo intended to turn me into a raving beauty, has little to do with the effectiveness of the machine intended to do the job, but much more to do with my experience year after year of watching these cumbersome and often costly gadgets gather dust in my living room. I wondered when I intended to accept the fact this wasn’t working!  No matter what we do our external shell will age and wrinkle and eventually disintegrate regardless of how hard we try to keep it well preserved. 

But our inner selves can only grow in depth and beauty and wisdom should our spirits receive the same care and attention that we give our bodies. 

Hindsight is the blessing of age, and of experience and is probably our greatest tool for approaching life in constructive and productive ways.

My struggle this New Years reminded me of a birthday party I once attended for an eight year old. Someone had replaced the regular candles with trick ones that won’t go out. That poor child could not accept the fact they were destined to remain lit and he kept puffing away. Each time they went out they popped back, and continued to do so until an adult finally removed them from the cake, under great protest. For that child would have sat there for hours trying to extinguish those trick candles, not quite getting the message that wasn’t going to happen!  

That’s the gift of hindsight which can warn us not to continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again as we so often have done when the very same issue, problem or difficulty seems to endlessly pop back up and repeat itself. 

For me my exercise craze was an avoidance of what I knew all along. No matter how many Pilate bands, or big blue body balls, or weights or ab crunchers I warehoused,  I sure was not going to follow through  until I could deal with what I needed to accept about myself, and what was important on the inside. Once we can accept our limitations and see with fresh eyes why we get trapped, or fail or get stuck, then the insights about what we really need can fall into place. Its that Ah Ah! Moment when it all registers, when we suddenly have a grip on what it was in our thinking or experience or actions that tripped us up and then ultimately can free us to move forward.
The blessing of Insight is having the advantage of hindsight, so that we can face the blank page of a new day, a new year, the unknown, the realities rather than the fantasies, with enthusiasm, when we can say out loud… “gee what am I waiting for“, instead of… “do I have too?”

I hope that this new year brings you much to appreciate and honor about yourselves, who we are as individuals, and as a church. 

Between us we have many years of hindsight and therefore many more  insights. May they be the blessings we hope for, the reality we wish to see come to fruition, the joy in knowing that as a faith our insights are ours, are real and truly belong to us. May their lessons lead us all into this brand new year with much to look forward to and even more to celebrate. As we consider our blessings, I would like to close with these words taken from the Peter Paul and Mary Song:  “ With Your Face To The Wind:     

You’ve been down this road before
Somethin’ inside tells you what’s in store
Gotta remember what were all here for
Ya gotta eat up the apple and spit out the core.
There are gifts that come like rain
They make the plants grow, they drench you all the same
And there are gifts you took years to see…
Sometimes it takes the dark to let us see the light
You can’t have that victory unless you fought the fight
Sometimes it takes a winding road to lead us home
While your windin’ round , my friend, just don’t go windin’ round alone.

So be it
Amen