A New Year!

“Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring happy bells, across the snow.
The year is going, let him go.
Ring out the false, ring in the new!”
Lord Alfred Tennyson

 

John Eldredge again.  Same book as yesterday.  Page 162

“Today is New Year’s Day.

“…But taken as most people celebrate New Year’s Eve, it has always struck me as a pretty hollow attempt to to generate a moment of transcendence, a grasp by people who need to feel  that something special is taking place because their past year wasn’t really all that eventful and maybe, just maybe the coming yeear will be.  Hope springs eternal.

“Don’t get me wrong – I think milestones are important and I wish we postmodern Christians had a much richer tradition of holy days, feast days, days of rememberance, and such…

“There seems to me to be much better milestones for hoopla and merrymaking.  How about the end of a school year and the beginning of summer vacation?  Now that’s worth a party.  Birthdays are worth celebrating.  Anniversaries are, too.  After all, a year of marriage is a feat.  The fact that you haven’t killed each other is a cause for celebration.  Back to New Year’s – …

“I do find it worthwhile to stop and ask myself, What do I want this year to be like?  What do I want to change? – that sort of thing.  All that can be very healthy.  Staying up until midnight wearing paper hats and drinking too much has long lost its appeal.”

 

2 thoughts on “A New Year!

  1. Ah the New Year… Stayed up until about 1:30? Was it? I don’t know, waiting for Tredessa to call and let me know she made it home safely. Then up around 6am, I don’t sleep long anytime anyway. Cleaned up the house from our “party” with Stormie, Dessa, and the nieces and watching the new Robin Hood with Russell Crowe, I like it as well as Robin Hood Prince of Thieves even though I saw RHPOT about 7 times in the theater… or more :) Then hit the treadmill for about 44 minutes, so at least I have maintained my workout routine over the past year, so that’s something to be thankful for. My weight has fluctuated only slightly since I lost a small person from a year and half ago, so that’s also something to be thankful for. I did go to WalMart today and up’d my barbell weights for walking on the treadmill, so I guess that is my resolution? I was just thinking of how you always had to have “watch night” services at church and “pray in the New Year” or it wouldn’t be a good year. I wonder how much spiritual superstition we have in our lives and don’t even realize it? Oh, well… New Year’s Resolutions? In no particular order: Finish my 3rd novel and get ready for press and finish the Christmas play I am writing… for next season. Love my wife and children and grandchildren more and try to be the best person I can be to all of mankind that I come in contact with. Be more a picture of Jesus and as much as it is possible with me, live at peace with all men.
    HAPPY NEW YEAR to all and to all a good night…
    wait, sorry wrong holiday.

  2. My friend and I read the book that him and his with wrote together called “captivity” it was really good! The only book I actually finished in like three years.

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