Hear, Hear, Huzzah, and Happy New Year!

It is not a new poem, but I cannot remember loving it as much in years past as I do today.  So much here that is amazing!  I feel the need to do a lectio divina exercise with this poem! 

These holidays have been interesting.  Just returned from a huge family gathering in the Midwest.  Incredible times.  We had 85 people at Christmas dinner, and this was mainly immediate family.  I love that.  We had snow a couple of days after Christmas, the good kind--enough to make it pretty and to get to use the scarves and mittens we packed, but not enough to shut down life or kill a lot of people on the roads.  We strengthened bonds, caught up on the family dramas, had glimpses of what we miss by living 2000 miles away, had glimpses of what we would endure if we didn't live 2000 miles away. 

Home today:  sleeping in, reading, cooking, making up with the kitties who hate it when we travel, figuring out how I will change my ways in 2012, how I will "ring out the false, ring in the true," how I will "ring out false pride" and "ring in the love of truth and right," how I will identify that which is false and recognize that which is true and right and good. 

As St. Benedict says, "Always we begin again."  Thank God for that mercy!  Enjoy your new beginnings.  Happy New Year. 


"In Memoriam," [Ring out, wild bells]

by Lord Alfred Tennyson"



Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.



Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.



Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.



Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.



Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.



Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.



Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.



Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be

This'll be brief.

Mendo was gorgeous and mostly relaxing, as expected. Photo(s) will follow...at some point. I took nearly the whole of break truly off from school. Damn it if those stacks of grading did not shrink themselves while I was gone. Back to school. I had forgotten that Tuesday can sometimes be worse than Monday. I was happy to see the students on Monday, and they were mostly excited to be back, strangely enough. But today...meh. Tomorrow I become an associate of a Benedictine order. A friend asked on Sunday if I was excited. Not really. More scared, actually. Self-discipline is what I crave, and a rule of life is a very good thing...but I'm semi-notorious for not meeting my own expectations. The reassuring thing is that it is not a sin to fail to live by one's own rule, and no one will be judging me from on high or at eye level if I do not achieve all of my goals every day/week/month. It's a process, as is all of life, really, and I'm definitely taking baby steps this year in the things I would like to change, being realistic about the fact that all will not be perfect every day. I just wish it didn't feel like starting over every year. Some continuity would be refreshing.