Like it or lump it, at the back of a jarringly game-changing year another New Year is unrolling before us that brings in the year-end as well as baseline algorithm of reflections and resolutions. If you haven’t resolved on them yet, no worries; the Dragon New Year will ring in six weeks. Always remember: an indecision is better than a poor decision.
From the appalling anguish of bomb-ravaged Palestine and Ukraine, this New Year is a momentous breather to start afresh for the great unwashed to become enthused and move on to an upbeat future. For many 2023 was an onerous year when the human race got marooned on a rocky road in our forlorn world like the innocent vacationers who had to live in fear with no water, no electricity, no food, etc. in dismantled war zones.
Thanks to Robbie Burns, since my three-year long studies in Edinburgh I have been humming along “Auld Lang Syne” – “old long since” on Hogmanay, the last day of the old year or New Year’s Eve. It is all about old times, especially times fondly remembered as well as old and long friendships. The old year got burned off in our war-worn world. So, we salute the New Year ushered in for a rebirth of a new world. American poet Naomi Shihab Nye in her poem ‘Burning the Old Year’ reminds us that,
“So much of any year is flammable…….
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t.……
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.”
Besides a narcissistic attempt to shirk off a resolution made, is there a sticking point to consider more persistent paths towards fulfilment? All living creatures happily desire a middle-of-the-road rhythm of life and feel content. Are you afraid to fail? Human nature is to prevaricate; but we must face the music. No matter what, a scuffle to avoid failure is itself a failure. Life always presents us with a path of muddles and puddles. Mix-ups and missteps are parts of our passage. Couple of imposed failures almost slowed down my upstream swim; bouncing back after such devastating nightmares can be costly. Many hammer away to reach the solitary mountaintop only to find loneliness at the top.
2023 reshaped my landscape – well, mine was manageable unlike the roiling spells thousands of people endured in Gaza or Kyiv or Chennai. Have had an unpleasant surprise when I received an invitation to attend an absurdly steep seminar for almost $10,000(!) in the New Year. This may help me find answers on seismic shifts in technology, mitigate risks and create new prospects. In my nearly fifty-year long career, I never paid a dime to participate or lead a seminar! Better to stay around home to mitigate risks and always a new option will show up on my radar after such a tremulous ordeal. When I was young and foolish, I fell in love with too many things! So, now old and still risible, one of my New Year resolutions is to save $10,000.
A New Year brings an elation of a fresh beginning. Where I grew up, we celebrated two beginnings: the first one looms large prior to the Onam harvest festival in Kerala and the other immediately after Christmas. My parents and elder siblings made sure that we got some new outfits, umbrellas, footwear etc. not necessarily to splurge but to welcome a sassy beginning in the midst of ordinary chores of life. Early in life I discovered how birth order matters in a large brood. When you are blessed with bondable tender loving care from parents and elder siblings, school yard bullies might look elsewhere for easier targets. Both community leaders as well as teachers, either family members or former students of my father or classmates of my siblings, were on their best behaviour for me to enjoy a sturdy sense of security and opportunity.
During these frenetic days after Christmas, many are acutely distressed about travel plans to return home, get back to work and perhaps pay bills on time. Some may have to take care of health issues sooner than later. Therefore, despite the glitzy gatherings, ego goods under the Christmas tree, big ticket trips etc. life in the New Year might well be the same.
All cultures acclaim the beginning of a new year. We have established ways to regulate the length of the year, when it begins or ends and how to muddle through units of time. Year after year we sang Isaac Watts’ hymn “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” on school anniversary day. “Time is an ever-rolling stream where the Eternal One was our help in ages past and is our hope for years to come, our guard while troubles last and our eternal home”.
Most people celebrate the last day of the year, New Year’s Eve. The very first day of the New Year is a day to recover from the hangover also known as ‘hair of the dog’ (when a hair of the tail of the rabid dog that bit you applied to the wound may help heal) following merriment all night with friends and families. If you got plastered too much, have a glass of the same drink within 24 hours to soothe the nerves! What a way to greet a happy and prosperous New year! It was Julius Caesar who started January 1 as the first day of the year to honour Janus, the god of new beginnings whose two faces permitted him to look back into the past and forward into the future.
King Solomon in his old age discerned that ‘There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens’. Not sure whether we need a no-holds-barred analysis of the situations we live in! The crossing guard almost every day informs me of more authentic news about her people in Gaza than the convoluted media.
At the lowest point of her tenure, the late monarch Elizabeth II marked her 40th year with an unusual address. She stated, “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure,” and quoted a caring journalist as an ‘Annus Horribilis’. 1992 was a horrible year when she endured both personal and symbolic misfortunes. Her three children had marital issues. Her treasured childhood home was destroyed in fire. The royal myth of stoic monarchy was deflated forever.
No one wants a horrible year; don’t we look forward to an Annus mirabilis, an amazing, marvellous year of happiness, prosperity and good health? However, there are no guarantees in life. Decades ago, at the beginning of the year I cautioned my listeners that in the midst of new possibilities, new hopes and new dreams, some may encounter new issues such as despair, divorce, death and depression. One young woman appeared upset as she was burdened with her marital nightmares. In a few weeks, when she and her disillusioned husband came in to discuss their rattled relationship, the only way out was divorce and now she thanked me for my words of caution which made her emotionally prepared to take the high road to find a better partner.
Imagine scores of families in war-worn places preparing for any special days without a loved one. Therefore, remember that this gleeful season of excitement and happiness is also a bleak and bitter one of sadness and sorrow for countless global neighbors. Be gentle with yourself, be appreciative of others, and generous, giving and supportive – if nothing else, don’t let your heaps of bellyaching make others more miserable than they already are.
For me, the rigorous but home turf sacred hills of the southwest Indian subcontinent may be a happy place to welcome New Year. Being a people-watcher from a distance, my style to relax and reset, is to survey shifting maneuvers of humanity that keeps stirring in the midst of everything else from farming and swapping to politics and community. And for the New Year to unfold, I would sit at the Indian Coffee House next to my old alma mater, listen to the cacophony of the moving throng in all directions, take a breath, a sip and everything goes back to the way it should be.
Most of us begin our tumultuous cruise like a goby in a small stream and go with the flow to the deep waters of quests and conquests like piranhas. We are creatures of tomorrow as today is over. The secret of our faith is to claim the future that looks ahead, not look back like Janus. We must claim our blessings and own opportunities offered to us to move on. Albert Einstein cautioned us, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”The Book of Proverbs (23:18) tells us, “You have a bright future”.
One more year has passed, and a new year has come with 12 months of opportunities, 52 weeks of vitality, 365 days of contentment, 8760 hours of joy, 525,600 minutes of rejoicing and 31,536,000 seconds of blessedness for the next lap around the sun!
Get over your breaks and cracks.
Hold on to your hopes and beliefs.
Forget your tossing gaffes and griefs.
Focus on sage insights and devotions.
Holy One erases all our troubles
For sure, tomorrows bring in miracles.
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The Rev. Dr. John T. Mathew is an ordained minister in The United Church of Canada. Besides serving several urban and rural congregations in the province of Ontario, Canada since 1975, he also taught in the Department of Religious Studies, Huntington/Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario. Mathew was awarded the Merrill Fellowship at Harvard University Divinity School; he was Pastor-Theologian at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, NJ. He served at St. Machar’s Cathedral, Aberdeen (Church of Scotland) as Ecumenical Guest Minister (2010) and Interim Minister in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (2015-2017).
