What is it we love about New Year?
I’d argue, it’s about hope.
There’s so many different sorts of hope:
Hope that leads each of us into new things, or back into an old thing that we once gave up on. In days when we didn’t have that hope, hope for a new day, a new year, a new life.
I don’t mean to put myself with them, by any stretch, but many of the greats, have written more eloquently than I ever could, about hope.
Obama ran on it, in his own words: “The hope of a skinny kid with funny name, who believed America had a place for him too” but also, about “the hope of slaves sitting around fires, singing freedom songs”
The late great John Lewis hoped, as he marched on beside Martin Luther King, and later, when his hopes were fulfilled, he’d tell us don’t ever stop getting into that Good Trouble, that Necessary Trouble.
Because that’s what gives others hope for change – when somebody else’s hope pays off. I’ve been inspired this year by my older brother, because he did a triathlon, honestly, never expected that. But, he did. And that gives me hope, that maybe, this time next year, I’ll fit into my favourite shirt again.
This year gives me hope. That the year just been might have been the year I remembered where I get my hope from:
Sitting around tables with those who make me laugh. Hoping.
Sitting at a desk, a pen in my hand, ink all over my fingers from putting together the greatest story I’ll ever tell, I think. No. Not I think. I hope.
Getting on my bike, heading out into those great Northern winds. Hoping, mostly about my favourite shirt, but also, for other things.
Filling in another job form, because, well, I hope.
And as the great Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is that thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune, without the words, and never stops at all”
To anybody reading this, I bid you a happy new year, but also, a hopeful one.
Go find your hope this year.
And don’t forget to share it around.
Tom.