The New Year's Possibility for "Positivity"

Each year I take a canoe trip in early June with my children and siblings. Over the past 13 years we have canoed many of the rivers of Michigan and Wisconsin. What always strikes us is how little frequented are these rivers, given how beautiful they are.

We often have a "mid-year" meeting of our canoe gang, at which we celebrate the beautiful experience we had the prior summer. It helps cheer up our winter, and prompts us to start thinking and planning for the next summer.

Giussani talks about the "positivity" of all experience, by which, as I understand him, he means that there is a "hidden lining" in each and every experience, even negative experiences, such that, he claims, we can say that every experience is positive. This is how the world is constructed by a God who loves us.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future . . ." Jeremiah 29:11.

The video I make each year reminds me of the positivity of the canoeing experiences we have each summer. Making and viewing the video helps me appreciate and share its "positivity" with my family and friends.

As this new year begins with all its possibility, I want to resolve to see the "positivity" in my experiences, the tinge, the tone, the "silver lining" of God's providence. It sure isn't hard to do with our canoe trips, and the video remembrances of them! It's obviously more of a challenge respecting experiences we do not want to have, but suffer anyway. To find the positive in such experiences requires faith, hope and charity, faith in God's providence, hope in its fulfillment, and love or our willing God's will for the good.

As Pete Seeger sings, positivity means sensing we are "never alone" and "not far from home" as we sail down life's river. And as Sarah McLachlan sings, positivity is the ability to see the miracle in the ordinary, the redemption from hurting others that comes from forgiveness, and the solace in moving on after being hurt. In all these experiences we ask God's merciful touch.

Listen to Pete Seeger's beautiful song, "Sailing Down My Golden River."

Listen to Sarah McLachlan sing "Ordinary Miracle."

Listen to Sarah McLachlan sing "River."

Listen to Sarah McLachlan sing "Forgiveness."