In case you missed it, this past Sunday a group of parishioners and friends from all walks of life and backgrounds gathered in a circle during the 10 o’clock hour to share reflections on 2024 and hopes for 2025 as we “ring out” the old year and “ring in” the new. Wells of gratitude and insight emerged from the circle, including a common theme of processing the experience of living through “unprecedented” times.
In 2025, this thoroughly clichéd adjective simultaneously describes reality and illusion. The rate and threat of human induced climate change is indeed unprecedented and alarming. Likewise, artificial intelligence is taking us to uncharted territory across human industries, interests, and disciplines. At the same time, experiences that may feel unprecedented in our day, are surely history repeating itself. While cable news pundits are quick to quip that our nation has never been so divided, it’s hard to believe that we were any less divided at the time of the Civil War, when eleven states seceded from the union.
In the category of “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” falls Tennyson’s poem, In Memoriam, shared by Peter+ to frame our New Year’s conversation. Penned in 1850, it ends:
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.
The full poem, uncanny in its relevance, reflects St. Bart’s character as a community of faith that is both “timely and timeless.” Founded in 1835, our great church has endured as an anchor of faith through two pandemics, multiple epidemics, one civil war, two world wars, forty presidents, three buildings, and thirteen rectors, with Christ as our sure foundation.
As we celebrate The Epiphany this Sunday — once to the Magi, and now to those with the eyes of faith — let us rejoice in the knowledge that the One revealed to us cannot be shaken, surprised, or moved. There is nothing new to the Alpha and Omega, the Uncreated One, The Great I Am, the Light Shining in the Darkness, before time and into eternity. As we look to a new year with new hopes and horizons, challenges and joys, may we like the Magi, look to the light of God with curiosity and wonder, and discernment. The familiar story of the Magi always ends with a journey home “by another road.”
We may not know exactly what the future holds for 2025, but we know who holds the future. Thanks be to God we don’t travel the road alone. May we give thanks for the community of fellow seekers, sojourners, and pilgrims here at St. Bart’s and take courage in the God who transforms even our trite platitudes into beacons of wisdom and faith to illuminate our path.
In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]
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.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
1809 –1892
