WE CAN BEGIN AGAIN EVERY DAY
11-7-03
Western writer Louis L’Amour wrote something very important when he said, “A man’s life always starts today. Every morning is a beginning, a fresh start, and a man needn’t be hog-tied to the past. Whatever went before, a man’s life can begin now, today.”
This is what I call “the good news above all good news” because at some point in every life there will come that moment when we think we can’t go on. Something will happen that crushes all motivation and even the will to live. We will be like a butterfly someone has stepped on, quivering in the grass trying to see if any part of our wings are still working. Sometimes they are not and we have to crawl a while.
I’ve been there. Haven’t you? The only thought that will breathe new life into our numb souls at such a time is the idea that we can begin again.
I love the story about the woman caught in adultery who was literally flung at Jesus feet with the question, “Moses said she should be stoned to death, what do you say?” Then Jesus wrote something in the sand and said, “Let he that is without sin cast the first stone.”
I wrote a song about it and the chorus goes, “I think He wrote you can always start again no matter who you are or what you’ve been.” For the poor woman, that must have been the best thought to ever enter her mind -- one more chance at life. Since no one threw a stone, each one of them must have thought, “I have been at the end of my rope in the past and the day may come when I will want nothing more than one more chance.” They dropped their stones.
Every religion teaches the “fresh start.” Buddha saw life as suffering and taught techniques to overcome suffering. The word “gospel” means “good news.” Paul repeatedly said we could actually become “new creatures in Christ Jesus.” There is a fundamental hunger in every person to know they can begin again, to think they can change self-defeating behaviors, to hitch their heart to a star and rise above defeat and dark depression.
If religion does not help you to latch on to the realization that each day can be a new beginning, read the great psychologists and philosophers. Freud taught the power of the ego to handle the most dominant human drives. Jung taught the power of identifying with the transcendent. Adler taught techniques of self-esteem. Emerson was the king of the New England transcendentalists and in hundreds of essays essentially said, “You can start afresh. You can grow and be a better person.”
A writer tends to write about things that are bubbling around in his own life. When someone we love comes to us feeling as low as a snake’s belly, talking about suicide and the futility of life, we feel impelled to throw out any life preserver we can find, even if it’s nothing more than a 2X4, and say, “Yes, you can start anew, you have a new beginning inside you.” The same sun comes up every morning but it is ever-fresh and new because you have been in darkness for 12 hours and when you see the sun after walking out of the darkness, it will always be a brand new sun.
A person sitting on death row can open his eyes this morning and start a completely new life. If he has been cold and heartless, he can become kind and caring. Yes, these traits do develop from our childhood experiences but we can choose new ways at any point and the force will be with us. The forces of life have always been the dominant flow on this planet and are on the side of the man or woman who decides to start again.
Listen to L’Amour, “Whatever went before, a man’s life can begin now.”
