I spent a number of my winter afternoons walking around Mount Auburn, Boston’s first landscaped cemetery. In wintertime, its undulating lawns are covered by snow, and peppered by leafless trees and stubborn shrubs of various kinds. Tombs and memorials of all shapes and stones poignantly complete the palpably silent scene. Like others who visit Mount Auburn in these cold, white days, our walks are reflectively sobering.

Yet, the monk in me finds it delightfully uplifting for in a space like Mount Auburn I come to appreciate life, not death. Here, life quietly abounds. The stick-like trees harbour refreshing buds that will burst forth in spring. Painful memories of separation give way to thankful remembrances for those who pay their respects. The faith that those who lie beneath are in God’s embrace above neuters death’s sting. There is indeed truth to Edith Stein’s rebuttal to Heidegger: in the face of death, we don’t see nothingness; we see the fullness of life, a fullness that allows us to say “I am!”

If we look at our lives, we too will find ourselves in spaces where God says, “I am here!” When our mistakes lead to forgiveness, reconciliation and growing up, God’s Compassion is at work. When hope pierces the despair in our lives, we warm in God’s assuring Truth. When a friend listens or comforts us when our self-worth is busted by another who puts us down or rebuffs the gift we are, we rest in God’s Love. Indeed, God dwells and works in no other place than our lives, in our everyday time with its attendant sunlit sights and dark recesses. God is here because of who we are to God, his beloved.

This is the truth of who God is and who I am that I find myself acknowledging each time I reach Mount Auburn's highest point and look out onto Boston: God is not faraway, as God is our everyday God, laboring in us and for us. I'd like to believe our new year invites you and I to confess this truth too. I believe we can because this year’s newness, with all its promises and possibilities, is God’s desire for us to live life well and happily in the coming days.

And, isn’t this an assuring truth for us to continue taking the first steps we have taken for 2010?

photo: winter light by adsj