New Day, Milestones, Synchronicity
“Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Broadway Books, 1998), p. 102.
Richard Rohr compares Christians and Buddhists in his daily email. “Christians are usually talking about metaphysics (‘what is’), and Buddhists are usually talking about epistemology (‘how do we know what is’). In that sense, they offer great gifts to one another.” 1
Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings often speak to me. What a marvelous idea to wake up in the morning and say, “We have twenty-four brand new hours before us. I don’t want to waste a second, a minute, or an hour. It is a new day.”
Graduations are milestone marks of the beginning of a new day. But we also can experience a new day every day.
Yesterday is past. We reviewed what we had done and left undone the night before, when we prayed for God to forgive us of our wrongdoing, also referred to as sins. We remembered where we found joy, often where we least expected it. We recalled where we found love. We remembered the day’s experiences in which we saw God working in our lives.
new day
This is an extra day, a new beginning. We can no longer regret the past. If we have harmed others, we will make living amends where we need to, but today, we are offered a fresh start. We hope we have learned from the past. We will not continue doing the same thing every day and expect different results. Instead, we will look for synchronicity, moments, or serendipity in which we make connections and see how events are related.
One morning, I write about the Eucharist, and someone, unaware of my previous thoughts, later confides in me how important the Eucharist is in their life. We receive a message from a friend we have been thinking about that day. We think about someone we haven't seen in a long time. Later, that person calls. She tells us what we did or said was precisely what she needed at the time. That is synchronicity. These are God connections, constantly around us each new day.
1 Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, Meditation: Mindfulness, cac.org, August 24, 2018.
Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/