Once more the falling curtain closes the scenes and sequences of an old year.  And once more the most frequent wish from friend to friend is for happiness in the year ahead.  It is strange how our standards of happiness shift with circumstances.  Perhaps a year ago it would have taken much more to make us feel that we were happy than it would today.  Perhaps today we would be willing to settle for less and consider ourselves exceedingly happy.  But with freedom and faith men can be happy with much or more, or with little or less.

Every time the sun sets, it rises in the morning and sheds new light on yesterday’s shadows.  Whether a new century or a new day, life presents countless opportunities to begin anew.  No matter our age or circumstance, today is a new day, and so is tomorrow.  Think how wonderful that is!

While yesterday and all of history are valuable for the lessons learned, the experience gained, the memories made, each new day contains the promise of a fresh start.  We take hold of this promise by learning from the past and living in the present with bright hope for the future.

If we are to begin anew, we can neither ignore the past nor abide in it.  We move forward by remembering yesterday with its triumphs and tragedies, and by living today to the fullest.  Richard L. Evans offered some timely advice:  “Go ahead with your life, your plans, your preparation, as fully as you can.  Don’t waste time stopping before the interruptions have started.  Keep going forward, and keep your heart comforted, with courage and faith in the future.  The wise keep learning, keep preparing for life, and don’t let uncertainties dissuade them from moving forward.”

Life gives us abundant opportunities for a fresh start.  In a sense, each beginning is no different from any other.  A new school year, a new job, a new city, friendship, or phase of life, all take some getting used to.  But when we embrace the change and welcome the opportunity for growth, we live more fully and discover interests and talents that might otherwise have gone undeveloped.

Yesterday’s stumbling blocks can become today’s stepping-stones.  And little by little, as we go forward with purpose and hope, our new beginning will become a new way of life.

So as we contemplate the new year, it would be interesting to know what men desire in their hearts that it should hold for them.  These hopes, no doubt, could be stated in broad generalities for most of us.  We all want peace, of course.

We all want to be permitted to use our energies and powers of thought in constructive activity.  We all want to be loved, and respected, and cherished by someone who esteems us more than casually.  We all want the necessities of life, and what each of us considers to be our share of its comforts.  In short, everyone is hoping that the new year will hold happiness for himself or herself and for those he  or she wishes well.  That, of course, is the basis of the phrase “Happy New Year”, which is spoken so often and so thoughtlessly that it has lost much of its meaning.  But in hoping for a Happy New Year, it would be revealing to know what it is that men think would make them happy.

So often when we speak of living abundantly, we are thinking in terms of material comforts and advantages.  If man were a creature only of flesh and bone, food and raiment and the physical comforts would be the end of all his needs.  But he is also a creature of mind and of spirit and of immortal continuance, and that abundant life of which we speak must go beyond a full stomach; a new car; a new dress or shoe and such things.

The material side of our existence is an important, indeed, essential consideration, but it is by no means the only consideration.  He who makes possible by his creative ingenuity or inventive genius or powers of organisation, the wider distribution of more and more desirable things, is a common benefactor of mankind, but he who supposes that life begins and ends with the accumulation of this world’s goods, is misguided in his thinking.

It was of such as he of whom this parable was spoken:  And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take things easy; eat, drink and be merry.  But God said unto him; Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.  Then whose shall those things be, which thou has provided?”  (Luke 12:19, 20).  And the conclusion of the matter, according to the record of Luke, is this:  “That life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.”  (Luke 12:23)  And so, when we say “Happy New Year” we speak of that happiness wherein “men might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”  (John 10:10)  Remembering, in the words of Paul to the Romans, that:  “The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy.”  (Romans 14:17)

Happy and proper meaningful New year to you all.

By Samuel Enos Eghan