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"Celebrate the beginning of a new vision." Lesson 75, A Course in Miracles

The traditions we honor, perhaps without even knowing, bring us to a place of choosing again, celebrating new beginnings and affirming extraordinary possibilities each January. Do you remember banging pots and pans at midnight? Have you ever stayed up till the clock strikes 12 just to kiss your sweetheart? These are a few of the familiar traditions practiced for "luck" or prosperity. But more important, these traditions give us a physical means to create new intention and to affirm a new choice to the Universe.

"The Light has Come!" declares workbook lesson 75 of A Course in Miracles. This is a wonderful study to practice, celebrating a new vision for the New Year. It speaks of seeing the world in a light which has come "to replace an unforgiven world that we once thought was real." I notice in reflecting upon my childhood, that for that one day, New Years Day, we dreamed of new beginnings for ourselves and for the world. We clearly held a new vision of a forgiven world born again.

Starting fresh, beginning again, requires letting go of the past. It suggests seeing the present without condemnation. We can never know happiness while we cling to old resentments or miss rejoicing in our current revelries. When we carry the past into the now, we cast a shadow over our vision, not unlike a cataracted eye, thereby blocking GodÕs Light. We have missed our opportunity to rise from the ashes of our past and recreate our potential-filled selves.

The New Year's traditions we routinely practiced as children innocently summoned Universal Light to shine upon our ideas, upon our innate belief in the power to recreate ourselves. As an adult I realize that we are continually on a threshold of newness. Every moment can be a new beginning. We need not wait for January to imagine new possibilities. At any moment we might choose to recreate our lives and ourselves.

The Course lesson continues by telling us, "Rejoice in the power of forgiveness to heal your sight completely". This is the crucial point in how we let go of the past. It is through forgiving ourselves and forgiving others that our vision begins to shift. The world hardly looks bleak, when we rejoice in what is. And the truth is, the mental image we often hold of an unforgiven world–––is not real. Only now is real. I rejoice in that truth.

Daring to rejoice can feel beyond our reach, but the lesson further admonishes: "Realize that your forgiveness entitles you to vision. Understand that the Holy Spirit never fails to give the gift of sight to the world." Alone it is indeed a weighty task. Yet, by calling on the power of Holy Spirit, we cannot fail. We are entitled to vision. The Universe awaits our choice! Will we choose to be born anew in 2002?

We do not know what the new year holds for us. But we do have opportunity to create a vision for ourselves as grand and lovely as we can possibly imagine. The year is born again, born anew, and so are we. Let us not condemn today by clouding it with the past. Let us rather celebrate a new vision, for The Light has Come! Celebrate in purest joy the beginning of your new vision!

Namaste' Dear Ones.