Looking Forward to a New Year

The annual celebration of New Year’s Day (or perhaps more tellingly Eve) is typically a mix of giving thanks and relinquishing regrets for the past year with a hopeful anticipation and embrace of the new year. With all of the challenges of 2020, this mood seems especially heightened this year. To be sure, welcoming new opportunities and fresh starts is healthy all along our human journey. Nevertheless, we will continue to deal with the challenges of 2020 in 2021.

I have long puzzled over how January 1 was adopted to mark the new year. It doesn’t commemorate any historic event or person, nor is it correlated with any astronomical or agricultural occurrence or season. The Julian calendar of ancient Rome celebrated January in honor of the two-faced god Janus, who looked both forward and backward as gatekeeper of the future. That got carried into the Gregorian calendar adopted in 1582. My tongue-in-cheek sense is that January 1 only has real significance to accountants (though plenty of businesses start their fiscal years at different times) and revelers looking for an excuse for excessive partying.

I started my Psalm prayers this morning with Psalm 30:5,11 and found these lines particularly appropriate as we move from 2020 to 2021.

 Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.