New Year’s Resolution: To Lose The Blinders And Walk Towards The Light

I was scrounging around for a year-end post, and had one of those “happy accidents,” sometimes referred to as serendipity. I found an old illustration (circa 2006), and I also came across a quote by Saint Francis of Assisi. You may recall that Francis made an appearance in a recent Christmas post. Here’s the quote:

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

Here’s the illustration:

It wasn’t a commissioned illustration– just an idea of mine: namely, that we are often blind, and choose unwisely.

Our anger and arrogance blind us to the light, and make us our own worst enemy. Here’s a detail image:

Our walk is our preaching, whether we wish to preach or not. We are constantly preaching to others, and preaching to ourselves. Francis knew our “walk” was much more powerful than our “talk,” because he also said:

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.

We live in an imperfect world, and yes, there are many hardships, many struggles. But we can’t hope to make it a better world if we embrace cynicism, negativity, darkness.

So here’s my New Year’s Wish for everyone, myself included: let’s choose love, beauty, joy, hope, charity. Let’s cast off our blinders and walk towards the light.

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What do you think? Do we often choose to be blind? Is cynicism an ever-present temptation? Are you someone who makes New Year’s resolutions? Hope you’ll leave a comment.