Some thoughts for 2020 | "May both of us run a good race"

“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." - T.S. Eliot

It's been a long time. Thoughts swirl my mind, in and out, like the flow of waves on the beach. They come pouring forth, huge and dramatic, and then like a shock, they break and fade into the grains of the sand. I can't hold or contain them - time holds them back - and when I come to write, they are dwindled. I could probably be less pretentious or Virginia Woolf-esque in trying to describe why I don't write more often on this little blog space. Truth is, it is hard to write some days.

On New Year's Eve, I woke up with so much anticipation for the start of a new year, the roaring in of a new decade... the '20s. Early in the morning I chatted with a friend about making new year resolutions and the possibilities of this felt fresh and hopeful. Over the Christmas period, that magical, hope-filled season of Advent, I pondered a lot about what twenty-nineteen had been like in my experience, its ups and downs, how unexpected and rushed it all felt, like a hurtling rush of events and busyness. For us in Australia, this time has felt particularly tough with the raging bushfires and drought season. New Year's Eve brought the most horrific, apocalyptic images from the heart of our country to our phone and tv screens - red skies, blazing flames, heroic firefighters and survivors stranded on beaches, properties turned to ash, the vivid green of nature and our beloved wildlife brought to a waste land, and most of all the scarred remnants of broken lives. 

The start of a decade should be filled with purpose and hope, but for many of us it has not felt like this. Though it is awful here in Australia, there so many things across the world, news-headlines etc to cause people anxiety and worry, and fill us with a sense of sadness to say the least. I think as artists and writers, we often try very hard to capture the light and hope or meaning in the midst of tragedy and pain, grasping at it vainly. We seek for that rain to fall, that water in the wilderness, the beam of starlight in the darkest moment of the night. It is hard when we don't know from where to draw that hope in this dark world. At this moment, I feel like words from Scripture are most apt for this particular new year as we are entering upon a new decade, with all its anxieties and fears, hopes, plans and dreams. My confidence is not in how positive or hopeful things are looking, or in some naive belief in the goodness of human beings etc. We don't deserve anything good. But I simply, fully trust in the Lord's infinite goodness, His love for us and His unfailing compassion and mercy in a dark - very dark world. 

"This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I hope in Him!' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." 

- Lamentations 3: 19-26

On the first day of the new year, with those thoughts and words in my heart, I spent most of it reading and finished "Heather, Oak, and Olive: Three Stories" by Rosemary Sutcliff, Victor G. Ambrus (Illustrations). "May both of us run a good race" - that line caught in my throat, just the raw and simple beauty in those few words echoing the Apostle's words. Honestly it was a perfect read on the first day of the year, and the start of a new decade - 2020. It brought home to me the purpose. Let us run a good race, the one set before us, in fellowship, endurance and faithful kindness.

I love that I've started the year off with a Sutcliff novel. I missed doing that last year, but in previous years it had become a habit and one that really set the bar high reading wise. Sutcliff is one rare gem of a writer and I just treasure her books like mother-of-pearl shells at the beach. These three short stories, though simply told, contain some of what characterises Sutcliff best (I asked some of my Sutcliff-loving friends and they suggested those themes!) - disability, otherness, found family, the burden of duty, courage, legacy, brotherhood, quiet strength, sacrifice and loyalty. Gahh, I just love her!

Here's to a joyful, full and enriched year of reading! May God's blessings be with you this new year and grant you health and happiness. Happy New Year, dear friends! <3