December 31 - A New Year’s Eve Prayer

So here we are on New Year’s Eve 2023. We await 2024 with hope but also with trepidation. Tonight the news is full of Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Gaza and now tension between the United States and Yemen. And man at war with man hears not…

Tonight is either celebrated or dreaded or ignored. Some will go to bed as normal, others will watch Rick Astley and the fireworks from London, others will be at a party (Harpenden readers - how we miss those gatherings at John Farrow’s!) and others will be in church and gather at an event to herald midnight. We will be at the cathedral a bit later and then in the market square to see 2024 in as a city. Ripon does these big days well. 

We had a lovely upbeat service at Snape chapel here this morning. We reflected on the light of Christ coming and us needing to follow it when 2024 gets bumpy. One of our preachers present said when we have a light in front of us we focus on it, we don’t look at the ground below. We keep our eyes on where the light is leading us out of the darkness. 

There’s a very tongue in cheek website called Newsthump. Australia has already entered 2024. A headline says “Australians say 2024 is as rubbish.” We don’t know what lies ahead. We can only do our best. We stand tonight at the gate of another year. We put our hand into the hand of God. 

I don’t like New Year resolutions. They put pressure on people and when we fail it does our mental health no good at all. So in wishing my readers a very happy and peaceful New Year, and a thank you for letting me know some of you read this stuff, I’ll leave you with the wonderful Nadia Bolz-Weber and her honest prayer for us all. Let’s be kind to ourselves. It’s not going to be an easy year. But we enter it with assurance we don’t enter it alone. 

A New Year’s Blessing for realists.

As you enter this new year, as you pack away the Christmas decorations and get out your stretchy pants,

as you face the onslaught of false promises offered you through new disciplines and elimination diets,

as you grasp for control of yourself and your life and this chaotic world -

May you remember that there is no resolution that, if kept, will make you more worthy of love.

There is no resolution that, if kept, will make life less uncertain and allow you to control your aging parents and your teenage children and the way other people act.  

So this year (as every year),

May you just skip the part where you resolve to be better do better and look better this time.

Instead, may you give yourself the gift of really, really low expectations. Not out of resignation, but out of generosity.

May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.

May you expect so little of the people in your life that you actually notice and cherish every small, lovely thing about them.

May you expect so little of the service industry that you notice more of what you do get and less of what you don't and then just tip really well anyhow.

May you expect to get so little out of 2024 that you can celebrate every single thing it offers you, however small.

Because you deserve joy and not disappointment.