A new year, the last new semester

It is a New Year. The calender slips quietly into 2013. January begins again. And I return to the mountain valley that has shaped and molded and challenged and inspired me for one last semester at EMU. 

I wonder what this new year will bring, and what challenges, tears, and joys will come in this last new semester of my undergrad degree. I wonder how I will make the most of my time - or better yet, how I will be in the time I have there - and how I will treasure and honor the relationships and friends there who have held and molded pieces of my soul over the past 3 and a half-years.

I'm curious how I will apply the lessons and learnings from my months in DC, from my service with Action for Peace Through Prayer and Aid and my work with Shoulder-to-Shoulder, from my experience living with 12 wonderful women and a single man in Brookland, to my life back at EMU. I'm wondering how time spent with family in Europe, in Winnipeg, and in Abbostford has raised questions and thoughts about the EMU bubble I will reenter in a few days.

I'm curious how I will once again bridge the divide of cultures, of expectations, of faith, on the campus that I love.

And in the spirit of the New Year,  I think some about the concept of resolutions - of commitments people make upon entering new situations, new phases in life, new beginnings. And I wonder what I shall commit to in this last season at EMU and the new season of graduation.

It was in this spirit that I stumbled across a Huffington Post article by Norris J. Chumley, entitled "Love in the New Year." Like Chumley, I wonder what it might me to make resolutions based on loving others and myself, not based on guilt or expectations or failures, etc. And I wonder how such a commitment could shape my last semester at EMU.

"I love myself as much as I can in all my inferiority and flaws, sins and errors, strengths and weaknesses, and my talents and abilities. I am a lover, and I love being alive. Sure, there are changes I want to make, but if I lovingly make them focusing on what's good and possible with love, then by the love and grace of God I will be the best I can be." 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norris-j-chumley-phd/love-in-the-new-year_b_2393468.html

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