Still Puzzled

Beginning the new year has always been a bit of an enigma to me. Why is this day any different than any other (sounds like a child's question at the Seder meal)? Really? What is so special at this point? Why don't we just celebrate the day after the solstice as the beginning back to light? Or why not March first or December first? Heck why not the start of each month? I think it's just that we need to mark beginnings - a chance to wipe clean the slate, drop the guilt of last year's attempts bobbled and relieve the guilt of missions failed. Jews and Muslims do this in the fall with their high holy days but the rest of the people of the book choose to close the book at the end of December and start clean in January.

So I look back at the year - marked with less than exemplary performance at work, but balanced with a hat trick of "A's" in seminary courses. Our charity, Operation ELF, served more than twice last year's number of kids, but the satisfaction is quickly staggered by the recognition that poverty seems to be growing faster than we can counter it. So we just press on.

And this year, as we head into January and I anticipate a trip to Nogales and Altar and the land of despiration that drives even women and children to attempt their futile crossings of Desolation and Sonora, I wonder what value I can put into the stream of life. I don't even know really what my calling is or even why God has me going this way. So I press on.

Still puzzled.