2022:  Yes!

January 1, 2022

“For all that has been, thank you.  For all that is to come, yes!” ~ Dag Hammarskjöld

This morning, on the dawn of another new year, it is challenging to say “thank you” for all that has been, especially over these last two years.  How do we say “thank you” for an ongoing global pandemic, riotous politics and social upheavals, dissension and violence, lost jobs and opportunities, catastrophic natural disasters, a wounded and dying planet?  To say those two words requires a certain boldness; to find some kind of meaning in the midst of all of the turbulence requires a theology in something—or someone—larger than us.  For me, I am thankful to be alive.  I am thankful that my loved ones have thus far survived.  I am thankful that I realize that these blessings have nothing to do with me but with gift, gratis, grace from whatever name we choose for Universe/God/Other.

While saying “thank you” may be difficult, saying “Yes!” to 2022 may even be more demanding, may even require a bit of ledge-stepping.  Someone recently posted on Facebook that 2022 is pronounced “2020, too.”  What a dismal thought!  Yet, not impossible.  To get to the yes takes some courage, along with, again, boldness.  An artist friend of mine defined being “bold” as: “Bold to ask for what you truly want. Bold to share your humble art. It’s not linear but exponential blessings- pressed down, shaken together and running over!”  Yes!

We’ve all been at a place in our lives where what we had thought would be wasn’t.  Disappointment is one of the first realities we experience.  It is so often easier to grieve over what didn’t happen, to take our toys and go home, or to envy the lives of others, rather than to accept our own lives, our own situations and choices, as they are, where we are, where God is.  Now.  This acceptance is not passive or a type of giving up; it is a challenge to accept those things that cannot be changed, while also an invitation to embrace the life that is ours and make something of it. “Yes” is an action word.

So, I am looking 2022 in the eye and declaring a resounding YES!  My “humble art” includes this blog and my poetry.  Others may be/are better, more successful, more published.  My handful of followers may be few, but I say “yes” to each precious one of them:  yes to showing up, yes to creating, yes to sharing, yes to being thankful for them, yes to this unique life that is mine.  Imagine a world full of YES. I hope that you will add the power of your “yes” to mine.

Blessings for health, peace, and joy in 2022!  ~ Rosemary

New Year 2022

Birds gather at the feeder
on this heavy dismal New Year’s
Day, the sky a swath of leaden
gray: black-capped chickadee,
peach-breasted titmouse, sleek-headed
nuthatch, fat red finch, ladder-backed
woodpecker, even a curious
mourning dove hopeful for
spilled seed. The cardinal,
a scarlet flame against the sullen
sky, nudges each one aside
as he claims his kingdom.
From time to time, a red-tailed
hawk with eager eye glides
over the leafless trees
taking stock
and the flock scatters
in a flash of wings,
only to return, one at a time,
to perch on a slick branch
each awaiting its turn
for the black-polished seed,
its resolute “yes” to life,
my “yes” as well.

© Rosemary McMahan

Photo credit: Pixabay