Ring Out, Wild Bells
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
I love New Year's Eve! However, I love it for a completely different reason than many other people love it!
I absolutely detest parties on New
Year's eve with all their mandatory over-drinking, shouting, noise-making and
feigned hugging. I used to lie to get out of them. Now that I am 75, I
just say "no" to invitations without even giving an excuse. I
do not judge or condemn others who love those things, but they are certainly
not things that I enjoy - never have!
What I enjoy is staying home in my
cozy condo where I enjoy my own company in a long evening of prayerful
reflection on the past year and the new year coming up. I prepare for the
evening like many people would prepare for a party. I clean my house, buy some
nice food to nibble on, pour myself a drink, put on some nice music, read over
last year's journal, start a new journal for 2020 and write down my
thoughts. I am one who likes to live "with purpose" and "on
purpose," rather than "playing it by ear" and "going with
the flow," so these New Year's Eve retreat serve a purpose - a time to lay
out my plans for another year! I have been enjoying my "new year's
retreats" for years and years now. Being the true introvert that I am, it
is something to which I really look forward every year's end!
As the years roll by, I am becoming
more and more aware of my age and my health. Seventy-five is not all that old
these days when more and more people live to be a hundred or more, but the fact
that I am only a little more than four years away from turning eighty is
sobering indeed! I am pretty healthy for my age. I have no arthritis or joint
problems, my heart seems fine, my blood pressure is good, my cholesterol is
normal, my bone density is fine and I can do the treadmill test quite easily
without getting winded. At my age, while still being in pretty good health, I
am becoming more and more aware that I need to savor each and every day of
health while I can.
Last year I spent a good deal of
time reflecting on my life up to this point. I put those reflections in a
little book entitled BETWEEN COURAGE AND COWARDICE: Choosing to Do Hard
Things for Your Own Good. When it was done, I tried to come up with a
phrase to summarize how I feel about my life so far. I spent a lot of time
editing it and correcting it and reworking it. I finally settled on four words
- SIMPLY AMAZED - FOREVER GRATEFUL. The more I go back and look at
those words, the more convinced I am of their truth. That is exactly how I feel
about where I came from and where I am today - so convinced, in fact, that I
had them engraved on my new granite tombstone. To make sure I did not take
myself too seriously, I ended the year with another book published, a book of
humor, entitled I JUST HAD TO LAUGH, in which I collected together
fifty years of personal humorous anecdotes.
2020! Such a perfect
round number! What would I like to be the focus of this "perfect"
year? This will be my reflection question during the last evening of this year!
After serving as a pastor in three places over 27 years, publishing over 32
books, writing a weekly column for 15 years, presenting over 160 convocations
around "presbyteral theology" in 10 countries, offering at least 75
parish missions in 3 states, serving as a "vocation director" for 7
years, teaching in the seminary for 14 years, being a campus minister for 14
years and serving in the foreign missions for 5 years so far, what can I do
next that will be life-giving and age-appropriate?
So far, I can see 2020 as a year of
less frantic travel and more carpe diem (seizing the day)
right here at home. I have not advertised the priest retreats that I have been
doing for several years. Invitations have mostly come through "word
of mouth." I have had no need to advertise. I actually turned down two
invitations to archdioceses in Canada for 2020 because of the travel
complications of getting there and back. I have long ago quit enjoying air
travel! Because of that, for the first time in 20 years, I have only one priest convocation on my
calendar at this point.- one down in the islands in March. I am not saying that I will never do another one. I am
just saying that it is OK if I don't.
God is ultimately in charge of my
future, of course, but he invites a response of prayerful openness to his
invitations. That's what my New Year's Eve retreat will be all about -
listening and trying to respond. Here are four things, so far, I feel
that I need to reflect on and pray over.
(1) The first thing I feel called to
focus on in 2020 is to keep up my mission work down in the Caribbean, but
focusing more on a "succession plan" for myself and fellow volunteer
from Ireland, Fergal Redmond. I would like to get Catholic Second Wind
Guild to the point that it could keep expanding its ministry without us,
if necessary.
(2) The second thing I feel called
to focus on in 2020 is my heath and wellness - staying healthy and well as long
as I can. The secret to this, as I see it, is fidelity to a good diet and
regular exercise. I consider these "spiritual disciplines" very much
like prayer.
(3) The third thing I feel called to
focus on in 2020 is giving more focused attention to doing small thoughtful
things for my family, friends and the total strangers who cross my path. I want
to resist the urge that many senior citizens have to be self-focused as if that
is something we deserve or earned. I believe that my legacy
will be the good memories about me that I leave with them. I want them to
remember me as a person who remembered to focus on them. If I do that, I
believe that I will come to realize the deep satisfaction that comes from
understanding that "it is in giving that one receives."
(4) The fourth thing I feel called
to do in 2020 is to keep focusing on the discipline of writing. I don't
write these days because I believe the world needs to hear what I have to say,
but because "I don't know what I think until I read what I say," as
Flannery O'Connor put it. It helps me to write, to bring
it out where I can see it and reflect on it. Besides,
what better hobby can an old person have as they find themselves more
restricted to their homes than writing? If it helps other people who read it,
then that is merely icing on the cake!
(5) I want to remember a
poem that I heard quoted this year by Congressman Elijah Cummings who died just
recently.
JUST A MINUTE
Dr. Benjamine E. Mays
pioneering civil rights leader
I only have a minute.
Sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, I did not choose it,
But I know that I must use it.
Give account if I abuse it.
Suffer, if I lose it.
Only a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.
(6) Finally, I like to kneel down on both knees in silence as the clock strikes midnight and the New Year begins!
I wish all of you a very happy 2020!
If you are my age or older, I want to end here with a little New Year's humor.
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