The last hours of 2005 are literally ticking away and soon attention will fall upon events taking place in Times Square. 2005 was extraordinary, but then so is any other year at this point looking back. Violence and poverty throughout the world continue. This year's benchmarks were a wave of natural disasters which reminded us that we are only human and that life is at once both precious and fragile.
Among those we lost this year were an anti-war champion, a king of late night television and a pope. It seems that remembering those who are no longer with us is an integral part of the ritual that marks our annual passage from one year to the next. It reminds me of Yahweh instructing Moses to climb the mountain to view the land of Canaan which he was about to give to the Israelites as their homeland. Moses would only view it from afar but not enter it. And so it is of those we lost. They will not enter the new year with us.
We greet the incoming year filled with all of the hope and promise of the Israelites entering Canaan. It will not take long before we discover that 2006, like every year before it, is not the land of milk and honey. In 2006 we will meet once again achievement and failure, discovery and bewilderment, industriousness and disaster, life and death. Whatever the new year holds for you and I, may we embrace it with acceptance and peace.
Copyright 2005 Don Neale, Jr.
All rights reserved.
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