New Year, New Start
Thank you to the REV SHIRLEY MURPHY for these New Year thoughts…
Image courtesy of Flash Alexander of Pixabay
The term “New Year” has something magical about it.
On 1 January a brand-new year lies ahead of us and, for me personally, it is always a bit like “starting all over”.
As we approach the end of the old year, we start thinking about the New Year resolutions we are about to make.
We have all done it with hopes and prayers that in this year we will do better than in the previous years. We promised ourselves to quit smoking, quit drinking, to lose weight, to visit our family more often, etc… and every year we failed.
Just a couple of months into the year, we are too tired to wake up to go to the gym to do the exercises to lose weight; instead, every time the alarm goes, we just switch it off and go back to sleep. Every year we make resolutions only for them to be broken. So, we decide that the next year will be the year to start and we plan to do them all over again.
Similarly, when the Lent period starts, we want to give up something. Most of us decide to give up eating chocolates, some decide to give up social media. But we don’t really keep up to it.
As humans we are social beings and so would like to be kept in a loop and want to know everything that happens in other lives every day. We are scrolling the social media pages of our friends and family members to make sure that we have not missed anything that has happened in their lives. When we decide to keep away from these for a little while, we easily give in to the temptations surrounding us. Sadly, most of these well-intentioned declarations, resolutions and promises are abandoned quickly. However, the fact remains that having a desire to make some sort of change indicates that we want to improve something about our lives.
The practice of resolutions or pegging goals to a particular calendar date was already well-established by the 1860s, as seen in one of Mark Twain’s letters. “Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath,” he wrote on 1 January 1863. “Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time” (Mark Twain, Letter to Territorial Enterprise).
As we usher in 2023, we hope and pray that we will be in a much better place. 2022 has taught us to live with new and innovative ways with the pandemic among us.
If there was one good thing 2022 taught us, it was that we learnt to be kind and compassionate to people when we opened our houses to the refugees and families from Ukraine who needed a place to live in our country.
2022 was tough as it taught us to survive with challenging economic and financial conditions as we faced the cost-of-living crisis and the energy bills rise. This taught many of us to make lifestyle changes, but this also resulted in more people giving to food banks.
The New Year is always full of resolutions. Let this one be yours, from Psalms (18:2): “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”
Put your trust in God. For where your treasure is, there you’ll find your heart. Put your trust in him. He won’t let you down. God is our hope, so put your life in his hands. May this be our resolution for the New Year.
The Rev Shirley Murphy is chaplain to the Bishop of St Davids
