Here’s the deal: Vic Lindsay, a particularly creative Marble staff member who in many ways spearheaded the blog idea and keeps it going (fan mail to VLindsay@marblechurch.org) sent us bloggers an article a few weeks ago regarding what to write about. It said, in essence, don’t write about what you think people need to know; no one cares! (There lies humility.)  Instead, write about what you can’t not write: what is a burning issue for you. Put that out there.

Well, it’s my first blog of the new year, and I find that I continue to chew on one of my favorite theological paradoxes, and I invite your insights and thoughts. A new year: New life, new resolutions, etc., etc. Lent approaching soon, with all its attendant mystery: light out of darkness, new life coming out of death, etc. The Bible has a lot to say about leaving the old life, moving in faith towards the new. Leave your nets, says Jesus… i.e., leave the old ways, the old job, the old security. Follow the new. The echo starts in the Old Testament with the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, I am doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?” Bad things happen to those who look back (think Lot’s wife). There is to be no dilly dallying, and especially, it seems, no regret or doubt.

This outlook can be exhilarating. And maybe necessary. And there have been pivotal times in my life when yes, something had to die before something else could be born. I have preached this gospel in many a class and workshop.

And yet, as potent as I think this outlook is, I am increasingly aware of a more subtle reality. Maybe I am just flunking Change 101, but so be it. The other reality, which I do believe can co-exist with our occasional call to radical departure, goes like this: It has its roots in a gorgeous, mysterious word: Palimpsest. The dictionary defines it as “a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.” Back in the day when writing tablets were rare, they had to be re-used.  Ah, enter nuance… yes, the new writing is there, but so are traces of the old… they co-exist, and will continue to do so, even as a new layer is added.

I think this word speaks to our spiritual lives, especially in a new year. Anything we do, or resolve, or lose, or gain… will be integrated with all that has gone before. We do not start with new slates, new creatures without precedent, or history, or leanings. We go forth into new life, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes reluctantly, always bringing all that has gone before. I like to think the old does not hold us back, but gives us ballast, identity, a depth that constant newness could not match. What do you think?

As you enter this new year, what are you aware of that you need to leave behind, and where does the task of integration beckon to you? Where do you need to be gentle with yourself regarding that which lingers?