Nothing changes on New Year's Day.

Unless we change it.

The first day of the year isn't like the seasons, which require no effort on our part to completely revolutionize the landscape.

Autumn is going to fall with or without us.

Spring is going to bloom whether we get up out of the chair or not.

January arrives Sunday and we haven't lifted a finger on its behalf.

July will find itself surrounded by summer in seven months no matter what we do or do not do.

But 2012 is going to be just like 2011 if we are just like 2011.

As individuals, organizations, and communities.

The new year gets old quick, however, if we do not experience rebirth too.

If you've put your dream somewhere on the shelves, reach up and make it real in 2012.

Be the answer to the owl's plaintive, questioning cry into the darkness:

Who?

Who?

Who?

You.

You are the answer.

But understand that it will take more than a day. And there is a great likelihood that it will take more than a single year, as well. But the bright light of that shining is that the joy and satisfaction of making your dream come true won't be over and done with the passing of one day's sun.

The new year offers all of us the chance to scrape off some rust which, as Neil Young so aptly observed, never sleeps. If you are in a rut, start changing your direction ever so gently. If you are stuck in a bad habit, climb out one step at a time.

“Happy New Year” can be more than a friendly exchange of words. It is, in fact, an open invitation to make those words more real than they ever could be, or will be, if we do nothing but speak them.

Let us vow, as individuals and a community, to live those words.

Every new day is quite literally the first day of the rest of our lives.

New Year's day can be an effective reminder of that fact if we take it to heart.

So, Happy New Year, everyone.

May the weeks that follow, and the months and the years, lead to your life's own best destiny and the best imaginable future for our community.

-JKW-