New Year is a time for looking back and looking forward.  The first month in the Gregorian calendar is named after the Roman god Janus who is depicted with a double-faced head, each looking in opposite directions.  He is a god who has oversight of  beginnings and endings. This I think  sums up the spirit of the new year - a time to look back and reflect on what has been and what might have been, as well as a time to look forward. 

For all of us the year will have been full of joys and sorrows, successes and failures, hopes and disappointments, all of which are the stuff of life. Some of us will have lost loved ones and the memory of those who have gone before us gives  the beginning of the new year a certain nostalgia and sadness in spite of what seems like forced merriment and celebration.  It is good to recognise this, to take stock, to reflect and give thanks for the good things that have happened and to let go of the bad.

New year  is also a time of new beginnings. The making of resolutions shows a desire to live a better life than we have done up to now. It shows a desire to transcend our present limitations and a recognition that we could do better if we but tried. Of course resolutions are easily broken and can lead us to despair about ourselves and our ability to improve.  But beginnings can happen at any time.  When I was a young nun, a sister in the community often offered the wise advice: from beginnings to beginnings through beginnings for beginnings have no end.  Nelson Mandela once said that he was no saint unless a saint was a sinner who kept on trying.  Is this not what life is about?  A constant trying to live as well as we can, to welcome what comes our way, good or bad, to  make sense of it, to make a positive contribution to society and the lives of those around us, to take the human race further in its journey towards wholeness and peace. 

New Year is a moment when we and the world seems poised between the past and a future that holds promise and possibility.  The world is longing for peace, for justice, for reconciliation, for generosity, for compassion, for equality,  for solidarity, for fraternity.  Which one of us does not also long for this?  Which one of us cannot  contribute in some little way to making these values a reality in our own lives?  I am often encouraged by the Jewish belief, Tikkun Olam - which means that bit by bit, one step at a time, in small and sometimes seemingly insignificant ways we can contribute to the healing of ourselves,our families and our broken world.  All summed up by Seamus Heaney in this quotation sent to me by a friend this Christmas

                History says, Don’t hope
                On this side of the grave,
                But then, once in a lifetime
                 The longed-for tidal wave
                Of justice can rise up,
                And hope and history rhyme…

            …So hope for a great sea-change…
                 Believe that a farther shore
                 Is reachable from here.                            (From ‘The Cure at Troy’, Seamus Heaney)

There was an article today in the BBC website entitled the Francis Phenomenon.  This  referred to Pope Francis who has caused quite a stir, even being named Time Magazine's Man of the Year.  The world seems intrigued by him - amazed and delighted at his style, turning him into a celebrity yet unsure whether he is going to effect the changes required and hoped for in an institution as large and monolithic as the Catholic Church. I heard a story recently that earlier in the year a statue of him was erected outside the Cathedral in Buenos Aires.  When he heard about it he phoned the priest in charge and insisted that it was pulled down.

Pope Francis appears a simple man. His ordinariness and humanity has impressed people. While it will be difficult to avoid becoming a well known personality it looks as though he is wanting to avoid becoming a celebrity, wanting people to focus on  his message rather than on himself.  This might be difficult because human nature seems to want to put people on pedestals, pinning hopes and unrealistic expectations on them and sometimes then gloating when they fail.  But the only place to go on a pedestal is to fall off.

Within a religious context this is to turn someone into an idol and religious people have a tendency to do this with significant figures and with religion itself.  They then take on an absolute value which obscures their message and even distorts the truth. The religious tradition can then become more important than its founder and founding message. 

The founders of the major world religions point beyond themselves to an ultimate reality which most of them call God. Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, told his followers not to accept his words unthinkingly but to work out their own salvation, judging for themselves whether the path he laid down would bring them enlightenment or not.  It was the path to enlightenment that was important, not the person of the Buddha.  Similarly Mohammed is not the focus of Islam. it is the path of God revealed to Mohammed and set down in the Qur'an. This is the path of peace which makes God the only absolute in life. Jesus too we are told is the Way but this is often interpreted as the end.  Jesus is the Way who shows  the path to peace, reconciliation, forgiveness - a path that demands dying to self and living for others. 

Christmas celebrates the birthday of Jesus. It is a time for family celebrations and the giving of gifts. but to forget the message of Jesus is to make Christmas into an idol, to render its celebration empty. Perhaps its true message can be summed up in  a christmas card I got this week. The last two lines are what it is all about.

                            O come all your faithful!
                            Joyfully acknowledge God among us,
                            caring for us and inspiring us
                            to care for each other
                            in the cosmic web of life!

The world is mourning the death of a great man. Today people throughout South  Africa and elsewhere have been remembering him at Church services and tomorrow statesmen from all over the world will attend his state funeral.  There have been many tributes, praising his courage, his ability to forgive and reconcile all parties in his divided country, his exquisite courtesy, his inspired leadership, his love of all people.  He was an actor on the world's stage who captured the imagination of many who now feel personally touched by  his death as they did by his life.

Here in Glasgow many of us campaigned for his release outside the  South African Consulate, wrote letters hoping that the address, Nelson Mandela Place, would be a source of embarrassment to the Consul, greeted him when he came to Glasgow to accept in person the freedom of the city granted to him while still in prison.  Glasgow and its citizens took Nelson Mandela to its heart as did many people throughout the world.

Recently I blogged about iconic figures and Mandela was certainly one of those.  I will never forget the person who told me that it had been a privilege to live at the same time as Nelson Mandela. This was a moment of enlightenment for me. I realised that there are great men and women, including figures like Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha,  whose lives change the very nature and structure of humanity.  They are indeed saviour figures. We are different because of them. They show us what we can be, they open a way for us to follow, they offer us the possibility of doing likewise.

Like last week I was struck by the appropriateness of the scripture readings at church services this second week of Advent. In the reading from the prophet Isaiah Christians will have heard of one on whom" the Spirit of the Lord rests, a spirit of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power ........ he does not judge by appearances, he gives no verdict on hearsay, but judges the wretched with integrity, and with equity gives a verdict for the poor of the land".  And the result of this is that " the wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion feed together ........ the cow and the bear make friends".  In the life of Nelson Mandela the world has seen the fulfilment of this prophecy, even if only for a moment. But that  moment can inspire us to work to make this vision a reality.  What a wonderful legacy that would be.

Nelson Mandela was renowned for his spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation but also for his firm and uncompromising commitment to justice and to truth.  I read recently that, in the spiritual life, as the selfish ego decreases, the pragmatic ego grows strong. I think Mandela had a strong pragmatic ego which had sacrificed self and personal gain for a wisdom that had a touch of genius about it. And this wisdom was got at a price - 27 long years in jail.  Like many saints in the Christian, Buddhist and Hindu traditions he had been forced into a situation where he had to look into his own heart and mind and came out of it transformed, sure of his values.  Perhaps if a period of retreat were essential for all politicians we might be more aware of the values that motivate them and trust them to act from those values rather than self-interest. The world would be a much better place for it.

This time of year is the Christian season of Advent.  It is a time of preparation for Christmas and the theme of the season is that of waiting.  The city of Glasgow had its own experience of waiting this past weekend.

A police helicopter crashed into a pub and families had to wait for hours and days to find out if their loved ones had survived.  This terrible accident happened as Scotland was celebrating its national holiday, St Andrew's Day, which gave added poignancy to the tragedy and put the whole country into mourning.  What was ironic was that, on the first Sunday in Advent, in  Christian churches throughout the country and indeed the world, the reading from scripture was about not knowing the day or the hour that death will come and how we can live oblivious to it until it takes us by surprise.  And then one will be taken and another left.  This is exactly what happened on the eve of St Andrew's Day.  No-one was expecting this tragedy which so far seems to have no explanation. Some people escaped while someone else close by was killed.  For the survivors this is a mystery - why did they survive and a friend not?  What a gift life is!  Tragedies teach us how little we are in control of it and how important it is to live it well each day and each moment that comes to us.

These happenings also bring out the best in people.  Glaswegians ran to the scene to form a human chain to get people out of the collapsed building and people have been offering condolences in any way they can - bringing flowers to the scene, signing a book of condolences, special prayer services.  This was a moment to see the generosity, bravery and goodness of our fellow citizens.  For those not able to help in any way there was a sense of powerlessness and a real desire to do something, anything to show love and concern.  Hence many people talked of praying -one Sikh young man spoke of going into a church to light a candle, something not known in his tradition.  This was religion at its best.  No concern for religious divisions but only the desire to express solidarity with the injured and bereaved.

It so happened the film Of Gods and Men was on television that same weekend.  This is the story of a community of monks killed by Islamic terrorists in Tiberine, Algeria. The film very movingly portrays their commitment to the Muslims among whom they lived and worked, their courage in the face of death but a courage that did not come easily or readily.  They did not want to die, they were afraid of how it might come about but they supported one another and encouraged one another in their determination not to run away from what they knew would be their fate. And so they died well.

These are wonderful examples of human nature at its best and good lessons for us all.