I don't know about you but I enjoy marking the New Year – not because I enjoy staying up late or partying but because I appreciate the time to reflect on the old year and welcome the new one. Perhaps it's because of my Scottish heritage and vivid childhood memories of my father going out to stand in the cold just before the clock struck midnight. He then came in carrying a lump of coal and wishing us all a happy new year. This Scottish tradition of ‘first footing’ is a way of blessing the house because it is believed that the first person who enters the house in the new year sets the tone for the year ahead. Carrying coal was a sign that the household would not go cold in the year to come. It was also seen to be advantageous for the first footer to be dark haired and this is thought to be because the invading Vikings were fair haired.
Over the last few years, I have reviewed the outgoing year and planned for the new one with a useful online document called Year Compass. When I reviewed 2024, I realized how much progress we have made on the house and I was surprised to remember that this time last year we were still working on the bathrooms and still had bats in the garage and sometimes even in the house! 2025 will be another year of working on the house but, apart from decorating both internally and externally, my list is getting shorter of jobs that need completing. With progress on the house, I have started to consider the garden and with my current guests, we are beginning to set up the reflective garden at the side of the house. It is great to have Clive and Karen back again to help and we have been putting up various finishing touches to the rooms such as putting up curtains, bathrooms shelves and door signs.
One of the features of the reflective garden is a door which will be one of six reflective points in the garden. A door is such a powerful symbol of stepping into the new: crossing a threshold. I am grateful for Clive’s carpentry skills to create this door feature which will be painted and moved into the garden. I'm also grateful for Karen's support in helping me develop other aspects of the reflective garden. The door can be walked through as an outward sign of an inward decision to step into something new or live a different way. There are so many threshold moments in our lives such as stepping into new jobs, new relationships and new locations. It may be stepping into a new calling or sense of vocation and whenever we say yes to one thing we are also saying no to other options or letting go of other things. I have a bad habit of trying to carry too many things and then I struggle to open the door, particularly when I am trying to keep the cat out of a certain room! This habit may hold a deeper meaning of being busy with lots of things and the challenge of letting go of some things so that I can step into what is ahead. As we begin this new year, I wonder what thresholds are before you and whether there is a challenge for you to let go of something in order to have the freedom to walk into something new. Perhaps there is a door open in front of us that we haven't even noticed before or we feel inadequate to step through. I wonder how the image of an open door speaks to you?
New Years Day offers a fresh start but so does each day. Within indigenous and religious traditions, including my own Celtic heritage, we find rituals and prayers to thank God for a new dawn. In ancient times when life expectancies were lower than they are today, a new day was not taken for granted and prayers were said as people saw the sun rise such as this ancient Celtic thanksgiving prayer-
Thanks to thee, O God, that I have risen to-day,
To the rising of this life itself;
May it be to Thine own glory, O God of every gift,
And to the glory of my soul likewise.
O great God, aid Thou my soul
With the aiding of Thine own mercy;
Even as I clothe my body with wool,
Cover Thou my soul with the shadow of Thy wing.
Each day as well as each year gives us a fresh opportunity to be thankful and to realign our direction for the day to our values and aspirations. People can be hesitant to set new year's resolutions because of having broken them in the past but setting realistic goals can increase the chance of us reaching them. We are particularly more likely to reach them if we write them down or share them with others so that we are accountable and have others to encourage us.
Sometimes it is less about having goals and more about having values – how we want to live and what sort of person we want to be. Unlike a goal we can never say that we have reached a value and tick it off our list saying, for example, that we’ve been caring or loyal so we can move on to something else. Values are more like a direction of travel that we set and stick to. One of the values that I am wanting to embrace this year is to be more active and increase my fitness, which includes joining the local aqua-aerobics on the beach. Another value for 2025 for me is to go deeper and be more reflective in what I am reading or pondering on. I am often keen to move on to the next book, the next thought, the next mouthful, the next thing in whatever context. I am keen to experience the new rather than dwell deeper and fully digest the old. As I begin this new year, I feel that I am being challenged to go slower and deeper; to not just settle with the surface meaning or superficial experience but to go deeper into the layers below. This was prompted by a quote from Meister Eckhart who said that if there is such a thing as a spiritual journey that it would be only a quarter inch long, though many miles deep. My desire for this year is to go down into the depths more rather than skim the surface. So, I wonder what values you wish to live by or goals you want to work towards this year?
So, as we have considered the new year and doorways, I will close with a well-known New Year poem made famous by King George VI who shared it in his Christmas broadcast in 1939. It was originally entitled ‘God Knows' but its more familiar title is now ‘The Gate of the Year.’
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.
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