New Year’s Eve – December 31, 2020

It’s grey and gloomy outside my door, mirroring my feelings on this last day of 2020.  Though  I am guardedly optimistic about where we all will be at this time next year, I am unhappily resigned to the tough slog that will be many of the days between now and then.

This most wretched yet rich, scary yet encouraging, unfamiliar yet adventurous year, the resultant emotional rollercoaster of it all has taken a toll. I am restless and weary…

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
        “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
        “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
          That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
    What need our little life
    Our human life to know,
    If God hath comprehension?
    In all the dizzy strife
    Of things both high and low,
    God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
    Is best. The stretch of years
    Which wind ahead, so dim
    To our imperfect vision,
    Are clear to God. Our fears
    Are premature; In Him,
    All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
    God moves to lift the veil
    From our impatient eyes,
    When, as the sweeter features
    Of Life’s stern face we hail,
    Fair beyond all surmise
    God’s thought around His creatures
    Our mind shall fill.

 Minnie Louise Haskins (1875 – 1957)

I am soothed and quieted by these words. They urge me to rest not fret, and for a time the poetic remedy works, but all too soon my restless soul cries out, raising a fist in protest. Other words rise, those of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892).

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

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 true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Ring Out, Wild Bells – written in 1850

Whatever 2021 holds for you, for me, whether it brings gentle restfulness, wild bells or both,

may there be much more health and prosperity, 

happiness, kindness, and compassion for all.

May 2021 be vaccine-blessed!

 

 

©2020 April Hoeller