“You will
still be eating last year’s harvest, when you will have to move it out to make
room for the New.”
These words contained in the Holy Bible in Leviticus 26:10, symbolize the true meaning
of the New Year’s Day. It is that special time when the world
enters into a new calendar year, and, as we try to leave our bad memories and
our unfulfilled wishes behind us, we are enthusiastically hoping for new
opportunities to come our way and fulfill our dreams and our wishes.
This is a time of celebrating that commonly occurs
around the world when people, wherever they are, observe not only the end of
one year but the beginning of a new year. It is a time when we all, without
exception, are overflowing with hopes and dreams of a new year bringing with it
success and happiness, and washing away the pains and the failures of the year
gone by. Each one of us, in our own special way, will take the time to reflect
on the past year, trying to set things as straight as we can in our minds,
acknowledging the things that went right, and reviewing or denying those that
were wrong. Irrespective of who we are, we all take the time to pray that, as
the New Year is ushering in, we will hopefully see the fulfillment of all our dreams,
hopes and wishes.
The world recognizes this annual
renewal of this time as an integral part of the cycle of life, and with it, a
renewal of life itself, irrespective of the particular culture, belief or
religion of the individual. The majority of the world’s religions set aside
this period to celebrate the change over from one calendar year to another. The
Western world and some African countries which follow the Gregorian Calendar observe the New Year, January 1st as
the beginning of each calendar year, while the Eastern and Far Eastern cultures
which follow the Lunar Calendar observe
days that change from year to year:
-The Christians all over the world celebrate the first day of January as New Years
day.
-
The Chinese, adhering strictly to the
lunar calendar, will celebrate their new year anytime between January 21 and
February 20 and assign a different name for each succeeding year.
-The Jews, celebrate their day as Rosh Hashanah (Head of the Year) in September or October of each
year.
-The Moslems, identify their New Year as Muharram (Rebirth) held in spring, usually during March.
-The Hindu New Year, Pahela
Baishakh, is held in April to coincide with the start of the harvest
season.
But despite the wide differences in the reasons and
timing of the events, and in the secular celebrations which accompany all of
them, there are deep, common spiritual roots going back for centuries. They underlie
recognition of the fundamental psychological change from the end of one year
and the start of another. Notwithstanding all the glitter and sparkle that is
built around these celebrations, there is a basic fundamental impetus for
recognizing the birth of a new year; for Christians, it reflects back to the Birth of the Son of God, and for
non-Christians, the Return of the Sun.
In both instances, the sincere hope is that there will be a dramatic change
from the life before to the new life, yet to unfold.
More than 4000 years ago, the Babylonians in Mesopotamia’s celebrated their ‘New Year’ on the Vernal Equinox in late march, when the day and night were equal and
considered to be the beginning of the New Year. The ancient Romans used the Ides of March as the start of their year
with several celebrations honoring their God, Janus, the two-faced God who sees the past and the future. The
ancient Chinese actually named and celebrated each New Year, a practice that
continues to the present. In the Indian continent, the New Year coincided the
season of harvest, a time of plenty and of fulfillment. Even the Heathen
believers, who reject all religions, recognize December 21st, ‘where the veils between the worlds are at
their thinnest’, as their New Year.
The current New Year’s Day celebrations
have over the centuries acquired traditions which, although different in the
different cultures, are all designed to signify the end of the old and welcome
the new:
The Chinese and most of the Far East, welcomed
the year with an abundance of noise using guns, firecrackers and drums with the
intention of driving out the forces of darkness and allowing the light of the
New Year to come in. The Western Cultures
also celebrate the birth of the New Year with equally noisy enthusiasm using a
variety of noise-making methods including, sirens, musical instruments, church
bells and party horns. The celebrations invariably involve sharing of food,
drinking and merriment and are all accompanied with the declarations of
resolutions for change; the great majority of which will never see the light of
day. This was simply, but brilliantly categorized by a Unknown Author in the following way:
“A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in
one year and out the other.”
In past years, the fact that the New
Year followed so closely to the
celebration of the birth of Christ, carried profound meaning in the life of
most Christians. It was a time when Christians were encouraged to engage in
crucial reflection on the state of their souls, the life they led, and
ultimately, their mortality. In fact, this period was considered to be the
focal point of the Christian calendar. There were no exuberant celebrations,
nor was there the abandoned reckless behavior, with an abundance of food and
drink that has become the hallmark of today’s activities. Instead, this was a
solemn time of reflection of events now past, and the need to continue
preparing for the relentless march to mortality. The great German 18th
century author and satirist Jean Paul
Richter placed this feeling in the right context when he wrote:
“Every man
regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time.”
Martin Luther, the famous German theologian and one of the
leaders of the Protestant Reformation, very neatly summarized the true meaning
of the New Year in the following quotation:
“Glory to
God in the highest heaven,
Who unto
man, his Son hath given,
While
angels sing with tender mirth;
-A glad
New Year to all the earth.”
Unfortunately,
the recent times have seen an almost complete reversal of the true meaning and with
it, the more solemn reference to past life and future direction that previously
existed. Instead, we have become willing participants of events wallowing in
excesses of jubilation and of liquor; where the prevailing attitude centers on ‘having an uninhibited time on New Year’s Eve,
and then turn over a new leaf on New Year’s Day’. We have somehow convinced
ourselves that God should play no role since this is not a time to pray, but a
time of welcoming the change from past to present with noise, alcohol and
promiscuity. Even the symbol of Father
Time, an old man armed with a scythe and a New Born Baby at his side is reminiscent of another secular
characterization, the Grim Reaper, rendering
it closer to pagan traditions.
To me, as the transition from the old
to the new takes place, any celebrating that occurs must of necessity be
combined with a time for genuine reflection. Clearly there is need to celebrate
the birth of a New Year with all the promises of good things to follow. But
before we can do so, we must also recognize all the trials and tribulations of
the year gone by, and we must free ourselves from all the bad memories of bitterness,
rancor and hate we acquired during the year. Without doing this, we cannot consider
entering into the pristine world of the coming New Year and hope to do any
better than we had done before. It is only by reflection, can we identify those
things that must be changed, or learn about those things we must do in order to
make full use of this time of new beginnings and hope to achieve full meaning
to our life.
So instead of the current wild
abandonment, and uninhibited orgies of behavior that seems to be the exclusively
popular choice for ushering the New Year, it will be so much more rewarding to
temper the celebrating with a period of genuine reflection on your past,
serious projections on your present needs, and above all, begin profound
consideration of your ultimate mortality. Indeed it is a happy moment in every
person’s life to be able to toast the dawn of yet another year, but in the long
run, this will be of very little consequence if the toast is not combined with
an earnest prayer for the recognition of the needs and changes in your life.
The very influential American author and social critic, Justin Brooks Atkinson summarized the impact and disposition of these events of the
past year in these terms:
“Drop the
last year into the silent limbo of the past.
Let it go,
for it was imperfect and thank God, it can go.”
-This is
undoubtedly the most appropriate approach we should all adopt to this special
event in our lives. We will all be far better served by releasing all the
imperfections and mistakes of the past year, and instead, thank God for the
opportunity to try again.
-A HAPPY AND MEANINGFUL
NEW YEAR TO ALL-
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