Sometime after midnight early one New Year’s morning, snow had fallen and blanketed the town and surrounding hills and mountains where I was visiting. As the dawn broke, I headed up a mountain trail to an overlook and discovered to my delight that I was the first one to lay down tracks in the new year.
I thought, “What an awesome gift it is to have a fresh start!” To have the well-worn tracks of yesterday be wiped clean and buried under a sparkling new view of ourselves and the world is the promise that each New Year holds.
How can we make good on that New Year’s promise? How can we let go of old definitions of ourselves and embrace a sparkling new sense of being?
The book of Genesis in the Bible gives us a way. It tells us, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (1:1). From there, we are given an unfoldment of all life based on that spiritual view. In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” the textbook of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “This word beginning is employed to signify the only, – that is, the eternal verity and unity of God and man, including the universe” (p. 502).
The beginning described in the first chapter of Genesis, then, is not a beginning in terms of time but in terms of thought. It’s our reference point – the basic truth from which we can view ourselves and the world. When we begin with God, infinite Spirit, we end up with a creation that is like God – spiritual, perfect, wholly good, and eternal.
From this standpoint, improvement isn’t about becoming better through human will, but about understanding better who we truly are as God’s expression – and then bringing our thoughts and actions in line with that view.
If we feel stuck in old patterns, we may need to check to see if we have accepted the mortal view of life as depicted in the allegory of Adam and Eve (see Genesis 2:6-3:24). This second account of creation found in Genesis is a view of life based not on God, divine Truth, but on the limited perspective of the physical senses. Starting with the flaws and limitations of a material view of life, we end up seeing ourselves as mere mortals with limited means of improvement – a mentality that would doom us to shortcomings.
Christ Jesus came to save us from going along with this mortal view of life. He proved through his healing work that the kingdom of God, the spiritual view of creation, is the true basis of being. When a Jewish leader, Nicodemus, spoke to Jesus about his healing work, Jesus referred to being “born again” (John 3:3). And he went on to convey that what was required to experience the kingdom of God was a change of thought from the material to the spiritual sense of being.
We too can experience the kingdom of God and find healing as we let the truth of everyone’s spiritual identity turn us from the material to the spiritual view of life.
One New Year’s Day, I found myself ill with a fever and sore throat. This seemed to be a pattern at that time every year, and I was ready for a new beginning.
Looking for inspiration, I turned to the Bible and read, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). It was a simple but powerful reminder to begin with God, begin with the joy that comes from a spiritual, Christly view of life.
Instantly, all the symptoms were gone. I’d felt so ill I could barely hold my head up, but suddenly I was completely well. I felt made anew through God’s love – and I did rejoice!
We can celebrate every day as a new beginning – as an opportunity to start fresh with God, leaving behind old patterns of thinking and delighting in a sparkling, spiritual view of ourselves that’s as pristine as a mountain snowfall. What a way to ring in the new year!
