198 "New"

New anything has always held allure for me, Gentle Reader. But here’s another quandary concerning sentience. Recently, I have realized that I really don’t have a feel for all the word “new” implies in general. Like so many other terms, it requires learning on my part to rightly grasp “new”, to get a “feel” for it. So, it’s true, I really know not how to embrace it.

I mean is newness always good, always comfortable, always right? I think you can see if I can’t answer these questions “new” is not a word I have particularly developed into any kind of broadly understood concept. Thankfully, when I stop to think about it, the word “new” does demonstrate its properties quite readily, and I think you may be interested to see as I do that, lo-and-behold, those properties are not always attractive. Who’d have thunk it? At any rate, think through the following with me, if you will.

For one, the word “new” is adaptable. Now, I never before grasped how important that property is. For example, one can easily imagine how a new dress is something positive to look forward to. In fact, in the old gospel song “Two Coats,” it says, put off the old coat and put on the new, meaning put on the spotless perfection of Jesus and discard that tired, soiled garment with which life has burdened you, i.e., sin. In both these instances “new” has a positive connotation. And being a “new creation” in Jesus Christ? Now that’s a truly heartening and ideal use of the word “new.”

But then there is another face of the adaptability of the word “new.”

Consider a “new” threat, as in a new disease-bearing insect invading America. Well, I think you can see that that is nothing to look forward to and is instead about as negative as it gets. So, not all new things are good.

The word “new” also can demonstrate great ambiguity. Consider the idea of a “new normal.” Sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it? Only, most people I know do not like change, especially when it involves the norm. One gets used to the “norm,” especially if the norm is comfortable and frequently even if it is not.

Now, I’m not saying that a new normal cannot be better than the old norm. In fact the new norm God offers us is exalted; but I am saying that if the new norm is not better, it may turn everything in one’s life on its head, may even be definitely uncomfortable, if not just plain awful and painful. Come to think of it, that is a pretty accurate description of what happened at the Fall—things went from just great to a “new” awful.

All I am really saying, Gentle Reader, is that the word “new” can have its upside and its downside too, so look carefully how the word is used. New anything can be an emotional bonanza for human beings or an emotional disaster. I think it is therefore fair to say that one would be wise to be especially circumspect about adopting the newest fad or trend in anything. Prove it out first, I say! What do you think? I think I am starting to get a “feel” for the word new!

At any rate, I think also that you can see by now that being sentient human beings, though not of any high order, our new and our old experiences have an emotional connotation in everything we are and do, just as they do in God’s experience.

To be continued . . .