HAPPY  NEW  YEAR

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Happy New Year.”

We say that a thousand times at this time as we begin a new year of life.

“Happy New Year.”

And I think we say that with more meaning than our regular daily greeting, “Hi, how’s it going?” and then the regular, “Hope you have a great day. Hang in there. See you later.”

SECRETS OF HAPPINESS

I’ve been working on a book - on secrets of happiness  - for a good 20 years now. One of these days…. And I’ll be happy when I finish it.

One secret of happiness - since moving to Annapolis - is to look forwards to reading a column in the Sunday Capital - our local Annapolis newspaper. The column is by Dr. Tom Muha - a psychologist here in Annapolis. Many of his Sunday pieces are on happiness - like especially today.

Suggestion: if you get the Capital - for more than local sports and the obituaries - and you’ve heard that the obituaries are the Old Ladies Obituary Column - look for Tom Muha’s column every Sunday - usually in the last section - the D section.

Today he talks about not making New Year’s Resolutions - because they usually don’t work - especially if they are negative ones.

If you like his stuff, check out the rest of his stuff, on line - and you can also listen to  him speaking some of his stuff on short YouTube segments.

I guarantee:  his stuff has a lot more grab than most of our sermons.

So that’s one secret of happiness. Read something in the paper like a favorite cartoon or a column on a regular basis.

And I noticed in today’s Capital, that Dear Abby is still speaking - even though she’s long gone. She has two happiness pieces in today’s letters. One is the Al-Anon Creed - Just for Today - and in a second letter she has a variation of the peace prayer from St. Francis of Assisi. I’ll say part of that prayer which is in the Canon of the Mass I’ll use for today.   Both pieces from Dear Abby would  be worth cutting out and placed on your refrigerator door for 2017. 

One of my life regrets was a dinner I was at in Chicago years ago. Dear Abby was at the table just behind us and as I was leaving I shook her hand instead of giving her a kiss good-bye - but she did have a lot of powder on. There’s gottta be a secret of happiness there: celebrate the handshakes, don’t miss the missed kisses.

So a secret of happiness is to come up with some secrets of happiness - awareness of a plan - and then practice that plan.

For example, someone said the secret of happiness is being able to say 3 words, “Yes”, “No”, and “Wow.” 

There is a lot of wisdom in that statement - and the person who said that added that the secret of unhappiness is always saying 3 other words, “If only” and “maybe”.

Smiley Blanton said that he noticed after 25 years of being a therapist - unhappy people were saying 2 words every time. They were at the bottom of every problem. The two words were, “If only” and if you want to change and be happier, change those two words to two other words, “Next time.”

A third secret of happiness is the ability to laugh.

I love to say, “You gotta laugh - especially at yourself.”

A priest friend of mind said he went to the movies by himself once. He heard that this movie was great, but nobody wanted to go. So he goes to the movie in the afternoon. It’s totally empty. Any seat in the house was his. He bought a big bucket of popcorn - goes in - sits in the exact middle seat of an aisle about 15 deep from the screen.

The movie is about to begin and in walk a couple who proceed to sit exactly in front of him. The movie begins and the guy says, “Are you going to be eating that popcorn the whole movie and making the sounds you are making with it.”

“You gotta laugh.”

He didn’t on the first instance - saying out loud - the whole theater is empty but us 3 and you chose to sit right in front of me.

You gotta laugh.

I saw someone with a peacoat yesterday and every time I see a Navy Peacoat it reminds me of a moment in my life when I was a kid. I had my toy rifle.  I’m hiding in the weeds and these 2 other kids are hunting me down with their toy rifles. I’m laying down on the ground - in the autumn grass and they go right by me. I jump up and go, “Bang, bang, I got both of you.”

They fall on the ground and look at me standing above them with my gun and they start laughing at me. All over the front of my peacoat is dog stuff. I laid right on top of it.

“You gotta laugh.”

Sometimes when we think we’re the winner, we have to laugh at the messes we lay down in. Ugh.

A NEW YEAR

This Sunday we begin a new year with the feast of Mary.

You gotta laugh God chose a teen age girl from a small town in Northern Israel to be his mother.  You gotta laugh at Chestertown’s quote, “How odd of God to choose the Jews.”  The scriptures are loaded with stories about how odd God’s choice was.

God does funny. God chooses us funny people to do our best to make life sweet for each other.

God is born as a baby.  God as a baby is born in a stable.  God is born as a baby in the feeding trough - the manger in the stable.  And you know what’s on the floor of a stable.

For 6 years - one week a month - I took care of horses we had in a barn at our seminary and I know all about shoveling horse manure. We always joked that it helped us with future sermons.

And to understand Jesus - you gotta laugh.

He was rejected by his own people. He was crucified - laughed at  - spit upon - and yet Jesus is our God.

You gotta laugh at that mystery - that surprise.

Be like Mary - ask questions of God. At the Annunciation she said, “No” to God - she wasn’t married. Then she said, “Yes” to God. “Be it done to me according to your word.”  Then I’m sure she said, “Wow!” a thousand times in prayer to God after that.

CONCLUSION

Happy New Year.

Make one good resolution - a positive one.

Look for surprises.

Laugh at mistakes - and what you step in.

And each day, make it better than the day before - not looking back at mistakes - but looking forward to what is better - saying each day, “Yes” “No”  and “Wow”. Amen.