On New Year’s Eve, 1969, I was twenty-five years old. I had begun the Sixties as a high school sophomore, and was ending it as a freshly-ordained minister in the Episcopal Church. A decade marked by so much historical drama and cultural transformation deserved a memorable farewell, but I found myself stuck at a tedious party with strangers and small talk in a Los Angeles suburb.

I slipped away and drove to the sea, arriving at the edge of the continent an hour before midnight. The big parking lot for Santa Monica’s popular public beach was deserted. I pulled up close to the sand, about a hundred yards from the surf. A “baptismal” immersion at the turning of time was my plan. But first, in the decade’s last hour, I would list in my journal the personal highlights for each of the last ten years: 

Three graduations and one ordination, my first guitar, my first romance, my first grand tour of Europe, an apartment fire consuming my theological library, two mystical experiences, one miracle, and the death of my father. And, a month before decade’s end, rolling over six times at sixty miles an hour in a Volkswagen bus––and walking away unbroken, intensely aware of the gift of futurity. I had been given more time to do whatever I was here to do. It was like being born again into a world glowing with possibility and presence. 

As I was writing these things down, a police car pulled up next to me. A young man parked by himself in an empty lot late at night was an object of suspicion under any circumstances, but the authorities at the time were on the lookout for the Zodiac Killer, who had been terrorizing California with a series of ghastly murders. Could this be the policeman’s lucky night?

He got out of his car and walked over to mine. I rolled down my window. When he asked what I was doing, I told him I was remembering the Sixties in my journal. He wondered if I would let him see what I was writing. It was very first draftish, but I handed it over willingly. My first reader! He scanned the pages, mumbling aloud my poor words along with a few inserted quotes:

“There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief…” (Bob Dylan)

“The world of the past is gone. Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21)

Fortunately, this did not strike him as serial killer material, so he wished me a Happy New Year and bid me goodnight. I walked down the sea in time to make ritual welcome to the 1970s.

The 2010s will depart less dramatically. There will be a backward glance with photos and stories­­––gratitude for the gifts, lament for the losses­­––along with expressions of astonishment at the accelerating speed of our allotted span in these latter days. At midnight we will stand on our porch blowing kazoos and train whistles, banging gongs and beating drums, to drive away the spirits of gloom. Then we’ll return inside to greet the New with dancing and champagne by the Christmas tree.

As the American Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, Henry David Thoreau, known for his outspoken opposition to slavery, wrote nothing about the conflict in his Journal. Rather, he continued to record his curiosity and delight over specimens and experiences of the natural world. A friend asked him how he could ignore “the Leviathan of Slavery” threatening to swallow the country like Jonah. Thoreau replied that refusing to let our attention be consumed by the hypnotic gaze of chaos “is just the most fatal, and indeed the only fatal, weapon you can direct against evil.” ^[i]

I know people who will spend this evening in prayer and vigil, aware that we are on the verge of an apocalyptic year, when the fate of this country and the fate of the planet are at stake as at no other time in living memory. 2020 promises an immense struggle requiring the best of us, and I am grateful for those who plan to welcome the New Year with their most prayerful attention, keeping their eye on the Light rather than being transfixed by the dark abyss of malevolence. 

I will join the fight on the morrow. But for tonight, by dancing and making merry, I will continue to remember and affirm a future beyond the battle, the new heaven and new earth where the tears are wiped from every eye and God’s beloved people rejoice once more in the light of hope and human flourishing. 

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Thank you, as always, dear reader, for the gift of your attentive reading and generous sharing of what I post here. Time is a precious commodity, and I appreciate your choice of spending some of it with The Religious Imagineer. I wish you a most happy––and redemptive––New Year. 

I began this blog halfway through this decade, and have posted a reflection on time, memory and hope every New Year’s Eve since 2014. You can find those writings at the following links:

The Angel of Possibility (2014)

Tick, Tock: Thoughts for New Year’s Eve (2015)

Foolishness and Hope on the Eve of 2017 (2016)

At the Mercy of the Future (2017)

On New Year’s Eve, My Inner Clown is Full of Hope (2018)

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^[i] Laura Dassow Walls, Henry David Thoreau: A Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 479-80. I commend this book highly. It is a beautifully written, richly informative, and quite moving narrative of one of America’s most remarkable figures.