Surfing into a New Year

The annual question hangs over our heads like a big wave hangs over the head of a surfer: “Are you going to make a New Year’s resolution?”

I found myself contemplating this very question late last month while surfing a modest but beautiful north swell with my son, William, and two friends, Joe and Beth. The waves were clean with a light west wind. The air was chilly as was the water (at least for a Florida boy). It was just past dawn and the sun softly lit up the sky. The horizon was streaked with cotton candy pink and the burned orange of a pumpkin.

I glided on the face of the waves feeling calm and free as two baby porpoises rolled just beyond us. It was the stuff of dreams. Sitting outside, once again, and waiting for another wave, I thought about the coming New Year.

The celebration of New Year’s Day on January 1 was originally dedicated by the Romans to the god Janus. Janus was depicted with two faces, which simultaneously looked both backward and forward. Janus’ two faces represented the passing of the old and the beginning of the new.

It’s apt that Janus looked both backward and forward. After all, that’s what many of us do as we approach January 1. That’s what I was doing while I waited for a wave. I evaluated the past with satisfaction (mostly) and eyed the future with hope.

At our best, we look at the previous year to identify ways that we might improve ourselves and our community. We look forward to a new beginning, even if the new beginning is short-lived before we fall off the wagon or eat a quart of ice cream. It’s like Wendell Berry said, “Either we change for the better or we will be changed for the worse.”

Honestly, we don’t need a calendar to tell us that it’s wise to amend our lives for the better—to be kinder, more physically fit, or to surf more. And we don’t need a once-a-year resolution. Benjamin Franklin, “Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you a better person.”

It’s a tall order to become a better person. It takes will, intention and commitment, not to mention practice. Not to mention patience with oneself—and grace.

But the greatest among us have always found it a worthy enterprise. And so, may the coming New Year find you committing to a better you and a better community. May you take stock of the past to create, by God’s grace, a beautiful and true future. And may we all surf into the New Year with courage to make our lives what they ought to be—not merely what they could be.