For New Year’s Eve this year, my mother-in-law gave the kids bags of confetti to toss when the ball dropped at midnight (read: 8:30 p.m.) in celebration of the incoming 2022. They had a blast dancing around and throwing fists full of tiny pieces of colored paper at, well, pretty much everything and everyone.
When the real ball dropped in Times Square a few hours later, I took a picture of the hoards of confetti falling on the revelers below to show our little cherubs when they woke the next day. Only days later did I learn that, since 2007, those tiny pieces of paper descending upon the masses in the Big Apple have contained “wishes” from a “Wishing Wall” that is set up in the city during the month of December. This year, more than 3,000 people each day stopped by the wall to inscribe their heart’s desires for 2022. According to news stories, those wishes included good health for self and loved ones, new homes, new babies, becoming a millionaire — and everything in-between. There was also a digital component online.
It’s kind of a cute idea: anonymously writing your dreams on pieces of paper that then get showered down in a moment of euphoria and hope as a new calendar year begins. But like the vacuum cleaner that sucked my kids’ confetti celebration out of the carpet at approximately 8:35 p.m., the written wishes of millions in Times Square don’t have much of a future. Over the first few days of the new year, New York’s sanitation department cleaned up approximately 3,000 pounds of confetti and dropped it off at the local dump.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing one’s wish on a piece of confetti, at least not morally (environmentally is a whole other matter). But imagine for a moment if those 3,000 people a day opted instead to stop by an adoration chapel to share their hopes, dreams and desires with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament rather than on a Wishing Wall? God, of course, already knows the wishes deep inside of us — what he hopes we will do is take a few moments to talk to him about them. His desire is for us to know him, love him and place our trust in him — not in the whims of a seasonal gimmick. The landfill can have our wishes; he wants our hearts.
I’ve heard it said that 2022 is the year of the non-resolution. That the past two years have worn us out, and we are just hoping to make it through the day-to-day of another year that is starting out to be, at least, as unpredictable as its recent predecessors. It’s difficult to find the strength for a yearlong resolution when one is uncertain what the next week alone will bring. There is one thing that remains constant though — one Person on whom we can always rely, no matter the circumstances.
What, then, if we made a conscious effort simply to grow in relationship with Christ this year in whatever way might work best for each one of us? You don’t have to commit to completing a demanding program or to making your way through a tall stack of spiritual volumes. You don’t have to leave your home. Just talk to him. Say hello. Tell him that you love him, that you’re grateful for his gifts, that you desire for him to be a part of your life. Share with him what is on your heart, and ask for his help. Put down the pen and piece of confetti of the secular world; he is waiting for you. Let him shower you with love.
Gretchen R. Crowe is editorial director for periodicals at OSV. Follow her on Twitter @GretchenOSV.
