First Day

All is well on the beach.

It is good for a person to have a place to come back to year after year...a place where you can look back on your previous year, and view yourself in relation to your past. A prof at Xavier once pointed out that our culture is unusual in that it does not have a meaningful 'new year' tradition. Most cultures throughout the world have some kind of ceremony of renewal that takes place once a year and gives some meaning to the passage of time. In America, every new year, the goal is to simply erase your consciousness by drinking to excess. This does not count as a meaningful ceremony.

So perhaps this is mine. A yearly pilgrimage to a retreat where my daily routine is eliminated and I can exist alongside something much much bigger than myself - an ocean so vast it can't be comprehended, and which I am only fit to wade in at the very very edges. And where I can look back and see what all has happened to bring me here.

I don't look back in regret. I look back fondly on proud memories, but I don't let the past hover around me. Life moves forward. My recent experiences were terrible and painful when they were in the present, but as soon as they became the past, their power over me faded. The future is still unknown, but the present is mine again. I offer as my message to you all the following lyrics from Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. Because, truly...Today Belongs to the Light.


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We get up early
Before the din and the hurly burly
O, Lord we got a lot of work to do

We stay out late
We know Babylon don't hibernate
O, Lord, we got a lot of work to do

In the arms of a bright and rising day
We see all the zombies crawl away

The motorcade is rattling out of sight
The dark parade will fade into the night

Today belongs to the Light

There was a time
When I ran barefoot through the alleyways and spit at the grand design
O, Lord, I had a lot of work to do
But now, now is the time
We must all lend our hands to the grand design
O, Lord we got a lot of work to do

In the arms of a bright and rising day
We see all the zombies crawl away...
I will stand and be counted

The dark parade will fade into the night
The motorcade is rattling out of sight
Today belongs to the Light

O, Lord, we got a lot of work to do
Stand up for all that is bright and true