It feels like only yesterday that I joined a group of slightly eccentric Anglicans in Manchester's Albert Square to 'Mark the Millennium'. Somehow or other they had persuaded the then Bishop of Manchester to join us to sing Cliff Richard's 'Millennium Prayer' when everyone else was singing 'Auld Lang Syne'. I had already led, at the vicar's request' a service to coincide with 2000 dawning in Samoa (I can't recall what I said, but it was well enough received). So how come that we are now on the brink of 2025, that quarter of a century has flown past, and that woman in her middle thirties is now in her early sixties?!
New Year's Eve is the annual anniversary of completing my chemotherapy in 2010, so that's fourteen years ago, a day when I pause briefly to give thanks for the wonder of modern medicine and the NHS services across these islands. Today as part of my volunteering, I spoke to a woman just about to begin her own chemo journey... I guess I have spoken to a few hundred women over the years, and it never ceases to be a privilege.
I last made a New Year's resolution more than 45 years ago, and successfully kept it - a decision never to make any more! But it's always good to pause at New Year, not to make plans for the year ahead, but to remind myself of all I have to be grateful for, and to commit whatever may lie ahead to the God who is present in it all.
So, these well-loved words from Bonhoeffer, in a 'Baptist' translation...
By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered
And confidently waiting, come what may,
We know that God is with us night and morning,
And never fails to meet us each new day.
Yet are our hearts by their old foe tormented
Still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
O give our frightened souls the sure salvation
For which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.
And when the cup you give is filled to brimming
With bitter suffering, hard to understand,
We take it gladly, trusting though with trembling,
Out of so good and so beloved a hand.
If once again, in this mixed world, you give us
The joy we had, the brightness of your sun,
We shall recall what we have learned through sorrow,
And dedicate our lives to you alone.
Now as your silence deeply spreads around us,
Open our ears to hear your children raise
From all the world, from every nation round us,
To you their universal hymn of praise.
Fred Pratt Green (1903-2000) and Keith Clements (born 1943) based on the German of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
Wishing all readers a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year and, if this isn't possible, then at least the assurance that God shares in all of life.