A Word From The Spirit Of Metanoia
Changing And Turning Towards Hope For The New Year
“Quite often, we have the same inclination in our everyday lives. We don't recognize that change can sometimes be very beneficial, although we fear it.
… the course of human events, even the greatest historical events, are not determined by the leaders of a nation or a state, like Presidents or governors or senators. They are controlled by the combined wisdom and courage and commitment and discernment and unselfishness and compassion and love and idealism of the common ordinary people.”
— Jimmy Carter in his ‘Law Day Speech’ of 1974
When 2024 was beginning, Bonnie and I had just moved into the basement of our home where we would be living for the next three months while renovations were being done to repair the water damage to the upstairs of our home. Not an easy task when you have two people in wheelchairs trying to cram two mechanical beds, a portable Hoyer Lift, and all their daily living supplies into such a closed in space. And that’s not mentioning trying to endure the cold of winter in a basement environment!
One month later, AHS decided to change the contract services for Community Caregivers. This ment meeting, training, and dealing with mismanaged and inexperienced caregivers while trying to survive the renovation and basement dwelling. On more then one occasion, I felt like we were loosing our minds!
The year continued with more adventures and figurative fires to put out. But it felt like I was in survival mode for a lot of it. It was challenging trying to keep up with creating a healthy normalcy — exercise routine, healthy eating, project planning, community engagement, etc.
As 2025 begins, it feels like a lot of these challenges are hopefully coming to a close. We can finally begin to turn towards and change our focus with hope for the new year!
Metanoia is a Greek word which means to change or turn towards a new position or focus. In their book ‘Metanoia: How God Radically Transforms People, Churches, and Organizations From The Inside Out’, Alan Hirsch and Rob Kelly define metanoia as:
“… an invitation to a process of making visible what is currently invisible.It invites us to see differently and to learn to behave differently, from a deep place of personal and corporate transformation.”1
I can’t help but wonder if change can have its own gravitas? It’s not so much the work or effort of the individual themselves, but a natural draw towards new life giving moments that a person is simply pulled into. Metanoia is not just the repentant act of changing what was “wrong” before, but a willingness and courage to follow an unseen evolving force or Spirit of transformation. Maybe, that in itself is the very definition of hope.
In a recent post from Fern Buszowski, she asks the question, “What is your Word for the year?” The purpose of articulating a word, she says,
“… is that it isn’t about goal setting, todo’s, or achieving. It doesn’t require measurement, performance, or comparison – all it needs is our awareness of what is going on around us, in us, and through us.”2
So while I suspect I’ll find many words spoken to me over the next year, I feel particularly drawn to the awareness of hope. Perhaps as its revelations are revealed to me in my life, it might also cast a shadow of hope into your life, too.
“Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness. Hope is knowing that there is love, it is trust in tomorrow it is falling asleep and waking again when the sun rises. In the midst of a gale at sea, it is to discover land. In the eyes of another it is to see that you are understood.… As long as there is still hope There will also be prayer.… And you will be held in God’s hands.”
— Henri Nouwen
“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and will not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. With joy I will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
— Isaiah 12:2-3
Hirsch, Alan, and Rob Kelly. Metanoia. 100 Movements Publishing, 27 Apr. 2023.
https://substack.com/inbox/post/153718681