A Lesson in Welcoming the New Year

One of my most poignant memories of New Years is a moment I was not there to experience. In my role as the family archivist, I was working my way through old photos, and I decided it was time to go through the movies.

I had Dad’s projector set up in the basement with the beam of light aimed at the wall, trying to decide what to have converted into a current video format, and what I should pitch, of the thousands of feet of movie film in the tins in the box on the floor.

One reel brought a flicker of black and white leader tape filled with scratches, and a dim out-of-focus image sharpened to take the shape of my extended family from a generation past. All gone now – standing together in an arc with champagne glasses and paper party hats, looking at the camera and singing Auld Lang Syne. It was a pretty powerful moment for me – looking in on their youthful faces, and knowing that at that moment they were living through the final days of World War II. They really didn’t know what would come with the new year. They had no way of knowing I would be here, 80 years later, watching this crackling film that captured a moment of optimism and celebration during a time that was filled with so much difficulty and sacrifice.

It sent a message to me of persistent optimism. Determination to create a positive future from the turmoil they were all in the middle of. This, surely, is an image and idea to hand down – a gift to me and the next generation. It’s an image that I need right now – and I’ll take my cue from. To set aside the accumulated exhaustion from all the uncertainties of the last several years, and resolve to greet this year with joy and possibility.

So, here’s to this new day, to this new year, and the chance to imagine a future for ourselves and our planet that is filled with grace and joy.

Happy New Year!

Thank you, God, for each new day and New Year you bring to us. Help us imagine the world you have told us is possible, and to do your work to make it a reality.  Amen

Diana is a founding member of Peace Church, and carries on her family’s New Year tradition of ice cream cake at midnight, and thinks that maybe she is limiting her thinking by only doing this one night a year.