The texts for January 1, 2012: Numbers 6:22–27; Psalm 8; Galatians 4:4–7; and Luke 2:21-38.
… It is also maybe why we get sentimentally sappy as the clock strikes midnight and we break out in “Auld lang sine”:
“We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet for old time’s sake!”
Essentially we are saying good bye to the past: letting it go
—letting the parts of the past that are gone
drift into the past in the happy glow from a bubbly drink
while toasting to a future not yet here—a future full of good will
but unencumbered by what has come and gone.
It’s a really good premise, I think:
to take the time to say good bye to what has been and to hope in what will be.
Sadly, though, a toast at New Year’s rarely, if ever, lets us embrace a future.
Especially one that is different from the past.
I think more often—probably almost always—
our vision and our hope for the future
is really our reaching for our past
happily blurred by sentimentality, selective memories,
and maybe just a few bubbles…
Jabbok Dawn 