The Sixth Day of Christmas: Ending with Beginnings

We're going to a wedding tonight, and I really can't think of a better to end this year. I ended both of my semesters with weddings. It felt so fitting to end with a beginning because no end points merely to the past, an end also looks towards the future.

It's been a good year, hard in so many ways, beautiful in more. Tonight will be a celebration of God's faithfulness: to our friends getting married, and also to His bride, the church.

Merry sixth day of Christmas, friends! Here's some T.S. Eliot to end the year and look forward to the next.

(excerpts from East Coker)

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls

Across the open field, leaving he deep lane

Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon.

[...]

On a summer midnight, you can hear the music

Of the weak pipe and the little drum

And see them dancing around the bonfire

The association of man and woman

In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie --

A dignified and commodiois sacrament,

Two and two, necessarye conjunction,

Holding eche other by the hand or the arm

Whiche betonketh concorde. Round and round the fire

Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,

Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter

Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,

Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth

Mirth of those long since under the eart

Nursing the corn. Keeping time,

Keeping the rhythm in their dancing

As in their living in the living seasons

The time of the seasons and the constellations

The time of milking and the time of harvest

The time of the coupling of man and woman

And that of beasts. Feat rising and falling.

Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

Dawn points and another day

Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind

Wrinkles and slides. I am here

Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

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Variations on a Theme

I love listening to variations. Watching the theme weave in and out of the melody, sometimes hidden, sometimes apparent. This year has been the hardest of my life. But it's all been variations on a theme...

My sister stayed in Iraq, protected only by tents while the enemy attacked overhead. My uncle had open-heart surgery (quadruple bypass). And my Dad had a heart-attack. Winter days filled with rain, hospital visits, and phone calls from across the world.

The Lord is Faithful.

The Lord took dear Mrs. Butler, our pastor's wife, home with him. The loss was as unexpected as it was heart-breaking. And my uncle died, the first of my Mom's siblings. Spring days filled with mourning, tears, and comfort.

The Lord is Faithful.

I had the best time of my life with the most wonderful people in the world - my Schola Great Books Class. Summer days filled with books, dance, laughter, and friendship.

The Lord is Faithful.

My illness began. We searched for answers but found none. We made the decision to put my youngest brother (who has high-spectrum autism) on medication. Autumn days filled with pain, sleep, medications, and doctor visits.

The Lord is Faithful.

My grandmother had a stroke. And my sister came home. I decided to go on with college applications - health or not. One of my best friends was in a car accident. Winter days filled with hospital visits, paperwork, prayers, and hope.

The Lord is Faithful.

---

I can hope my strength and health will return in this new year... that my sister will stay safe in Iraq... that we will find that perfect dose for my baby brother... that family troubles will go away...

But my happiness cannot rely on those hopes.

I can know that the Lord will be faithful. And my happiness and joy will come from that amazing wonder. Praise be to our God!

May you see the faithfulness of the Lord in this new year. :)

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Thoughts for the New Year

From one of my favorite characters in literature...

"She stirred in her chair and sighed. "It's a funny thing," she said thoughtfully, looking with wide, faraway eyes into the low, red flames. 'The thing life is fullest of is the thing we find hardest to believe in. New beginnings. The incredible gift of a fresh start. Every new year. Every new day. Every new life. What wonderful gifts! And when we spoil things, and life goes all wrong, we feel dismayed, because we find it so hard to see that we can start again. God lets us share it too, you know. Only God can give life, it's true - make a new baby or a new year - but he gives us the power to give each other a new beginning, to forgive each other and make a fresh start when things go wrong."

Spoken by Mother, The Hawk and The Dove, Penelope Wilcock


And from C.S. Lewis...

"If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or
other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who
achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while
the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come."

"Learning in War-Time", The Weight of Glory

New Year's Resolutions, these "these mad-cap capers with our own human wills, these frivolous encounters with our personal resolve," as The Autumn Rain excellently phrased it. When we make these (and I haven't for awhile), we seem to expect some amount of superhuman strength to come from the New Year, so we can carry out these resolutions as we never did in the years before. We fail, inevitably, and wait for the next year to make yet another long list of resolutions.

But if I could choose one resolution, it would be to persevere. And springing off that premise, I would have a list.

There is a beautiful frame right above my bed, a gift I brought home after my past visit with my dear friends. In lovely calligraphy, there is this quote, also from Mother (Hawk and the Dove).

"I would say that because we all have our failings and weaknesses, because each of us is only human, a friend - a good friend - is someone who helps you to persevere. When the going gets tough and you're on the point of jacking it all in, the people you will remember with thanks and love are the ones who helped you, in those moments, to persevere."

And with that thought, I hope to start this new year.

May you all have a blessed New Year.

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