Month: January 2022

A Bit More New Year’s Perspective

A Bit More New Year’s Perspective

My Spirit wakes up like the sunrise on a cold winter morning. My Spirit brings light and the hope of warmth and peace. My Mind senses the light and the warmth and rises triumphantly as it starts a new day. My Mind slowly clears, and the day begins. And just so, my Mind engages my Body and I rise, ready to face the challenges and the lessons of the day awaiting me. My intent is to seek some noble purpose and bring positive hope as I labor for the renewal of the common good.

This is how Spirit, Mind, and Body all coordinate and cooperate to bring fresh energy to my thoughts, words, and deeds. This Triune connection brings me to a place of service, a place of helping those in need.

I am reminded of the lesson taught me when I lived in New Orleans. I remember a comment made to a group of the city’s newest leaders. They instructed us to end each day asking ourselves this question– “what have you done today to make New Orleans a better place to live in?”

So, I ask myself, and by extension, I ask you, what are you planning today that will result in a better place in which we can live? I think we have our work cut out for us.

Of course, as always, I could be wrong.

 

Something to Consider

My first book is available at Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback format.  Search for my book by my name Jonathan D. Hutchison.  Please leave a review of my book after you have read it.

The book was written as a guide for small group study but it works just as well as a guide for individual study and reflection.

A full description of the book can be found on Amazon.com.

 

Jung’s Encouragement

Welcome 2022

Those of you who have read my blog (foundationalhope.com) know two things: 1) I haven’t posted any new material in some time and 2) I am always looking for inspiration to illustrate the theme of my blogsite, “The Power and Promise of Hope.” As the New Year begins, I have decided to get back to writing on a more regular basis and hopefully to find new resources that help heal the wounds that we read about so often in the news.

I offer this excerpt from C.G. Jung. In Volume 10, paragraph 295 of his Collected Works. Jung writes, “Whenever a civilization reaches its highest point, sooner or later a period of decay sets in. But the apparently meaningless and hopeless collapse into a disorder without aim or purpose, which fills the onlooker with disgust and despair, nevertheless contains within its darkness the germ of a new light.”

Ever since the winter solstice, the days are getting longer, more light is dissipating the darkness, and the new year offers each of us the opportunity to look with hope for better times ahead. Jung offered that a “germ of new light” is coming. What we do with that speck of light can make all the difference.

Our country has always come through the darkness of hard times, regrouped, and moved forward to even greater achievement. As a people, we can do that because we have found unity in common goals, values, aspirations, and needs. The question now is, as a country, do we still have a common set of goals, values, and the willingness to sacrifice for the common good? Can we unite before we divide and fall?

I hope we will decide, as we have in the past, to uncover the common good and to endure any sacrifice we must, to bring about another time of peace, of justice, and of bringing “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to new use and new meaning.

Happy New Year.