Author: Dr. Jay Forrest

Jay N. Forrest (D.Min.) is a Deistic Buddhist philosopher trained in Zen and Vipassanā, with advanced Buddhist studies at Harvard, Princeton, UVA, Naropa, Columbia, and Universiteit Leiden. He is a certified meditation teacher and the author of over a dozen books on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice.

New Year, New You: Wisdom for Lasting Change

The turning of the calendar is more than just a date—it’s a sacred invitation. For Christians, it is a reminder that “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). For Buddhists, it echoes the truth that each moment is fresh, an opportunity to awaken. And for those who walk the path of Zen, it is the recognition that the divine and the mindful are woven together in every breath.

Yet, as many of us know, resolutions are easy to make and hard to keep. Why? Because change is not simply about willpower—it’s about wisdom, awareness, and grace.

Why Change Feels So Hard

We often think failure comes from weak willpower. But habits are held in place by many forces—social influences, emotional triggers, environments, and routines. Imagine five people holding a door shut; it’s not your strength that’s lacking, it’s the resistance you’re facing.

Christianity reminds us that we are not meant to carry burdens alone: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Buddhism teaches that craving and attachment reinforce suffering. Zen calls us to see the interconnected web of influences that shape us.

Step One: Know Thyself

Both Scripture and the Dharma emphasize self-examination. Jesus asked us to “remove the plank from our own eye” before judging others. The Buddha urged us to observe the mind with clarity. The Zentheist path encourages us to become scientists of our own soul.

Identify your unique challenges:
– Certain times of day
– Certain people or places
– Emotional states like stress or loneliness

Awareness is the first step toward freedom.

Step Two: Create an Action Plan

Once you know your challenges, design a plan. Think of it as your spiritual rule of life: a set of practices to guide you when temptation arises.

  • Willpower + Grace: Motivate yourself with a vision of renewal. Christians may visualize the health needed to serve others. Buddhists may reflect on compassion for all beings. Zentheists may see the divine spark within themselves.
  • Skill Power: Learn the “how.” If stress makes you overeat, practice meditation, or mindful breathing instead. If TV leads to mindless snacking, cultivate mindful eating.
  • Community Support: Surround yourself with encouragers. The Church, the Sangha, or a circle of spiritual friends can strengthen your resolve.
  • Environment: Engineer your surroundings. Remove temptations, add reminders of your higher calling, and replace harmful habits with life-giving ones.

Step Three: Embrace Failure as Teacher

Here’s the paradox: your plan will fail. And that’s okay. Failure is not defeat—it’s revelation. Each stumble teaches you more about yourself.

Christianity calls this sanctification: the ongoing process of being refined. Buddhism calls it practice: falling and returning to the path. Zen calls it experiment: learning through the dance of spirit and matter.

As the book Change Anything says, “When it comes to creating lasting change, failure is the rule, not the exception.”

A New Year, A New Creation

This New Year’s Day, don’t just make a resolution—make a covenant with yourself and with the divine. Pick one habit. Study it. Notice the forces that bind you. Then design a plan that combines:

  • Personal awareness
  • Spiritual strength
  • Social support
  • Environmental design

Habits are chains, but chains can be broken. With Christ’s renewal, the Buddha’s mindfulness, and the Zentheist’s harmony, you can cut the strings that bind you and step into freedom.

This is the first day of the rest of your life. Step into it with courage, wisdom, and faith.

Jesus Was Not Born Today

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night… For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:8, 11 NKJV).

Jesus is widely regarded by historians as a historical figure, though details of his life and the circumstances of his birth remain subjects of scholarly discussion. What is generally agreed upon, however, is that the Bible does not provide evidence that Jesus was born on December 25.

For example, the Gospel of Luke describes shepherds near Bethlehem “living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.” Many historians note that this practice was more common in the warmer months, making a midwinter birth less likely.

The Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges that “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church,” indicating that the celebration of Jesus’ birth on December 25 developed later in Christian tradition.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica:

“The reason why Christmas came to be celebrated on December 25 remains uncertain, but most probably the reason is that early Christians wished the date to coincide with the pagan Roman festival marking the ‘birthday of the unconquered sun’ (natalis solis invicti); this festival celebrated the winter solstice, when the days again begin to lengthen and the sun begins to climb higher in the sky. The traditional customs connected with Christmas have accordingly developed from several sources as a result of the coincidence of the celebration of the birth of Christ with the pagan agricultural and solar observances at midwinter.

So whose birthday was it? Tradition holds that it was Mithras’ birthday. Mithra was an ancient Persian deity associated with the sun, contracts, and cosmic order. Mithraism, or the Mithraic Mysteries, became a Roman mystery religion (1st–4th century CE) centered on Mithras and was especially popular among soldiers. Some scholars suggest that elements of Mithraic ritual may have influenced aspects of early Pauline theology, including practices related to the eucharist.

From Catholic Answers Magazine:

Mithras was born on December 25. He was considered a great teacher and had twelve disciples.

Author James Rollins (summarizing scholarly parallels between Mithraism and Christianity):

Mithraism predated Christianity yet bore uncanny similarities. Mithra’s birthday was celebrated on December 25.

Antiquitatem (historical commentary on Mithraism and Christianity):

Mithra, god of the sun, was born on December 25, day of the winter solstice… That invincible sun is the god Mithra, whose worship and devotion competed with Christianity.

Interestingly, while December 25 may not mark the actual birth of Jesus, it does coincide with the birthday of Isaac Newton, the English physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, who was born in 1642 in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, England.

So today, alongside Christmas traditions, one might also reflect on Newton’s contributions to science and the Enlightenment.

The Dangers of an Infallible Guide

Alan Watts once told a story that has stayed with me.

After giving a talk on Canadian television, an announcer approached him and asked, “If the universe is governed by an intelligent and beneficent God, wouldn’t He naturally provide us with an infallible guide to behavior and to the truth about the universe?”

Watts knew he meant the Bible. He replied, “No, I think nothing of the kind, because I think a loving God would not do something to His children that would rot their brains.”

A loving God doesn’t hand us a rulebook—He gives us a mind.

Divine guidance, as I understand it in spiritual Deism, is not a rigid, infallible code meant to shut down inquiry. It is the natural, ongoing relationship between human reason and the One True God—the perfect, infinite Ground of Being that transcends all form and time.

Reality reveals itself in many ways, and our maturity as observers shapes what we can understand. The universe—what I call the world of Becoming—invites each of us, as conscious beings, to grow through experience, reason, and contemplative practice.

A loving God encourages mental development, right intention, right speech, and right action—not through inflexible dogma, but through the inner movement toward freedom, responsibility, and awakening. Spiritual growth is not obedience; it is transformation. It is the slow, steady refinement of perception and character.

To embrace this path, I live simply, as a contemplative, cultivating solitude, meditation, and mindfulness. My aim is not escape but clarity—living in harmony with nature and all life.

The true guide is not an external, unchanging rulebook. It is the God‑given reason working within us. Guidance unfolds as a continuous journey of awakening, loving others, and living in right relationship with the Earth and all beings. We are meant to wrestle with questions, to grow through effort, to discover wisdom through experience.

God does not do the work for us. God gave us the tools; we must use them.

Liar, Lunatic, Lord, or Legend

Here I want to address the false dilemma created by C.S. Lewis’s famous “Trilemma” argument—often summed up as: Jesus is either a Liar, a Lunatic, or the Lord.4.

It’s a false dilemma because there are more possibilities than just those three. One obvious option Lewis overlooks is that the New Testament may be, in large part, legendary.

Lewis challenges the popular notion that Jesus was merely a great moral teacher. He argues that, based on the radical claims Jesus made—especially about being divine (assuming the New Testament is accurate)—there are only three logical possibilities:

– Liar: If Jesus knowingly made false claims about being God, then he was deliberately deceiving people. That would make him morally corrupt, not a great teacher.
– Lunatic: If Jesus truly believed he was God but was mistaken, then he was delusional—on par with someone who thinks they’re a poached egg, as Lewis colorfully puts it.
– Lord: If Jesus’s claims were true, then he is who he said he was—the Son of God—and deserves worship.

Lewis concludes: “He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

While compelling to many, critics argue that Lewis’s trilemma is a false dilemma—it oversimplifies the possibilities. For example:

– Most scholars doubt whether the historical Jesus explicitly claimed divinity in the way Lewis assumes.
– Others suggest alternative interpretations: Jesus could have been misunderstood, mythologized, or misrepresented by later followers.

Once you’ve engaged in textual and historical criticism—and examined the contradictions within the gospels—it becomes difficult to accept a univocal account. In other words, there are competing ideas about what Jesus might have said, should have said, and actually said.

As Thomas Moore rightly points out, “As scholars have pointed out for over a century, the four Gospels are riddled with the interpretations, biases and agendas of their editors.” In other words, they should be read as propaganda, not history.

The challenge is that it’s hard to disentangle which parts are authentic and which are later additions. But if you follow the chronological development of the gospels, it appears that the portrayal of Jesus’s divinity evolved over time. Initially, he may have claimed to be no more than the Messiah. Over the decades, his status was elevated—culminating in the Council of Nicaea, where he was officially declared divine.

My view is that the Jesus of the gospels is largely legendary. That makes Lewis’s three choices a false dilemma. Jesus may have been revered as a spiritual master, but not as God incarnate. Which means the original followers of Jesus were the Ebionites, who traced their origins to the Jerusalem Church led by James, the brother of Jesus.