New Year Looks a Lot Like the Old Year

At the risk of appearing unduly chirpy, I refuse to join in sweeping the collective brow and rejoicing that the previous decade is behind us.

Granted, it was more than a little awful.

The last decade launched two wars, one of them unwarranted and both of them seemingly endless, after foreign terrorists killed more than 3,000 Americans on a single day.

The decade also pummeled our economy and left our international reputation in shambles.

It produced the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, gutted inner-city neighborhoods from coast to coast and left more Americans hungry than any time in the past 50 years.

There was also that long list of craziness: public figure infidelities, the mangling of civil discourse on talk shows and the Web, and a former vice president who's suddenly chattier than a singing chipmunk.

Utter madness, with the shelf life of canned Spam.

No artificial deadline as flimsy as a new calendar year is going to shake the devil off our shoulders. And speeding into the next decade is no way to learn from the one we just left behind. As individuals and as a country, we are the sum of our experiences. Maybe we should stop and think about what we've become and who we want to be.

Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, argued in a thoughtful op-ed in The Washington Post that our current financial crisis is also a spiritual crisis.

"More and more people are coming to understand that underlying the economic crisis is a values crisis, and that any economic recovery must be accompanied by a moral recovery," he wrote. "We have been asking the wrong question: When will the financial crisis end? The right question is: How will it change us?"

How will it change us? It's the ultimate question — and not just after we're already neck-deep in transition. How often might we benefit from reflecting at the beginning of a big shift in our lives by asking that question?

How will this job change me? This marriage? This child?

The longer we live the more chances we have to answer that same pesky question, often prompted by loss.

How will this divorce change me? This layoff? This death of a loved one?

At its core, the question is one of ownership.

The person asking the question is the only one who can answer it. Oddly enough, Americans, who are usually big on opportunity, often want to close this particular window. Blame has its comforts, especially when we can rightly point to someone else as the cause for much of our misery.

Problem is, fuming and festering tend to rob oxygen and rot a soul. We can be right, or we can be at peace. We can let the sharp edges of resentment whittle away at who we thought we were, or we can clear the rubble and breathe new life into who we ought to be.

Mindset matters. Mindless pep talks, not so much. I'm not big on happy talk that elevates the preacher while the flock stews in a darkening brew. It is maddening to be on the receiving end of worn-out platitudes plopped at your feet like a bag of secondhand clothes. When it comes to helping others in crisis, one size does not fit all.

Our best efforts often begin not with "Here's what you should do," but by our gently asking, "How can I help?" Up close and personal, strong shoulders and a listening ear matter. From a distance, we can contribute to local food banks, where the number of calls from families in need is setting records.

Our response to life defines us. I don't want to be an angry American or a fearful one. I don't want to be a forgetful one, either. I can't dismiss an entire decade of recent history as a woeful waste of time, for me or for my country. We are in a tough spot. How we survive it — and how we remember it — will determine who we are at the end of it.

How will this time in America change us?

The question is ours to answer — and ours to own.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House, "Life Happens" and "... and His Lovely Wife." She is a featured contributor in a recently released book by Bloomsbury, "The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's 'A More Perfect Union.'" To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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