The New Year

It is a big deal to start off a new year. Everyone has a sense of rebirth, a fresh start--even starting completely over (again). Somehow one day out of 365 gets the glory for this, and a mass movement begins around the U.S. and even the world. Every man and woman loves a do-over, a wiping of the slate, and a clean, tidy new look. It can change the feel of every moment of life, or it can fly out the window on January 2nd never to be seen again (until maybe next January 1st).

Though I won't share any resolutions, I will give you insight into what is on my mind as I ponder the year ahead, 5 years ahead, and the rest of my life on earth. It comes from G.K. Chesterton, one of my heroes of literature, one who had a lot to say and was gifted to say it elegantly and confidently beyond the church and throughout the world. Even though he lived in the late 1800's and early 1900's, most of his writing seems more profound every day...he was a prophet that still has more to say about the world. Heroes inspire. Heroes reveal greatness around them. Heroes rarely seek heroism--it finds them and they know not exactly what to do with it.

First, background from his work The Outline of Sanity. The word "distributism" is examined, an idea based on property and peasantry, in his terms. It mirrors in many ways the idea of membership reinforced by Wendell Berry. It involves self-support, self-control, and self-government. A community that produces and consumes, instead of focusing on exchange with the outside world. Distributism is done by people, not to people (big business and big government fall under the "to" category). Though business and government serve purposes, they are not the acting and dependent force. It involves fairness and true freedom...and faithfulness.

The deeper quote that I can't shake is from his book Orthodoxy about the paradox facing man. He proposes that to find life, one must "hate [the world] enough to want to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing."

This paradox is beneath all the questions in life...Why am I here?...Why should I care about that?...What can I do? If you hate the world without loving it enough to bring about change, pessimism parks in front of your door. It you love and value the world but don't actually do anything to change it, optimism is the best you can bring. But what about hating it enough to change it and loving it enough to think it worth changing? This is the framework of hope. And this hope is the very power and outpouring of the Gospel.