A New Year's Blessing

May your laughs be full and breathy, slightly embarrassing your loved ones;
may your philosophies be vital, and of diverse persuasions;
may your cup be full to overflowing and hot enough to steam your eyebrows;
may your friends challenge you to great deeds of introspection,
and inspire you to give yourself away for the neighbor's need;
may you play more than is right or seemly;
may your works of mercy arise spontaneously with very few good intentions;
may earth, wind, fire, and rain rise to greet you and leave you more soiled than your OCD desires;
may you stay off the Internet enough to live,
and on it enough to know the news and the prayer needs of others;
may your quests lead you deeper into your neighborhood,
and your domestic comforts redound to the farthest reaches of the globe;
may your children bless you;
may you be a blessing to others' children;
may you be like a child.

May your life rise to the infrequent patter of your heart,
and may your heart discover why it patters.
May you discover the extraordinary in the ordinary,
the manifold in the mundane,
the noble in the normal,
life among the lowly,
succor in the simple,
the gift in the giving,
the jouissance of justice,
the manner of mercy,
the labors of love.

May you fail to be mesmerized by the many, much, and more;
may you drop the desire for distractions and demands;
may you release relations for real realizations;
may you read and write words that set the soul on fire,
and quench it before it burns to ash,
or resurrect from ash to fly away and storm the sun.

And in every way, may you discover the image of God,
awakened and renewed, in the coming One,
the Christ, the one in and through whom all these other things
are and were and will be.
May you discover yourself, recapitulated, divinized,
made new, in the new year, born to theosis,
with a loaf of great bread and a block of aged cheese
in each hand.