Happy New "Year"

This is a time for regeneration. When the calendar changes over to a new year, it seems that individuals use this time as an opportunity to "take stock" in themselves - review the previous year, and make "resolutions" to improve themselves for the coming year. I'm no different (for full disclosure).

But I have been thinking the last couple of days, while working on resolutions (a couple of which deal with improving this site and my part-time practice of Christian healing), about the word "year" and what it means in a spiritual sense.

When talking about God, His Allness and eternity, one can recognize that our calendar year is based on the revolution of the Earth around the sun. God has no concept of years or even of days, because He operates in "eternity" - a concept of no time whatsoever.

It is written in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that the spiritual interpretation of the word "year" in the Bible is "space for repentance." (p. 598) Just think about that for a moment - in the Old Testament there are accounts of people (Enoch, for example) who "walked with God" and live several hundred years. How is that possible??!! Nowadays, living 100 years on this Earth is considered a major achievement of longevity. Enoch supposedly lived more than 350 years, and others lived 500 or more.

If you apply the spiritual use of the word "year," these "ages" might make more logical sense. If a "year" is considered "space for repentance," then one could read that Enoch, having "walked with God" his entire life, was given more than 350 "spaces" or opportunities to repent - to change his thought.

Essentially, I read this as every single instant - every moment - that we change our thought from un-Godlike to Godlike and every time we put ourselves back on the "straight and narrow way" of Truth, Life and Love, we are living a "year."

So as you move forward in 2012, think about the feeling you have with the New Year - a feeling of relief, regeneration, renewed energy and passion. And think that with every new opportunity to correct your thought, you should "celebrate" this new year and rejoice and express the same feelings of regeneration and renewal.

Your clock can strike midnight - and you can turn a new spiritual calendar - in any moment of any day. Just understand if your thought is not from God, good, and change it. There. Auld Lang Syne to you, whether it be in January, February or July.

Happy New "Year" everyone!