Happy New Year to everyone!

[Gencor]

With all that we have lived through in the year 2020, I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year and hoping that 2021 will find everyone healthy, prosperous, and looking forward to a better future.

We are getting off to a promising start with a new vaccine coming our way and a new president in our white house that is competent to run our country and keep us safe. He will put us first!

Happy New Year to all of you. Please stay safe and healthy!

[RJNorton]

Thanks, Genna. Happy New Year to everyone!

[Mylye2222]

Happy New Year to all.

Hope 2021 will see the end of that terrible virus.

[LincolnMan]

Happy New Year!

[ELCore]

Happy New Year to all!

[Rob Wick]

In a letter Ralph Newman wrote to Carl Sandburg on January 2, 1954, he noted that while he hated to see any year pass, he wasn't sad that 1953 was over. Not only did he suffer personal loss, but that was the year James G. Randall and Douglas Southall Freeman died. I agree with Newman only my attention is on 2020. I don't know anyone who will be sorry to see it go. It perfectly fit the definition of an annus horriblis.

Here's hoping that 2021 is far better for us all.

Best
Rob

[Dennis Urban]

Good Riddance 2020!!! Unless you had a birth, wedding, (virtual) graduation of other joyous and memorable family event, 2020 can be forgotten as a year lost. 2021 brings promise of better things to come, like herd immunity (who can we credit for that expression?); tribal immunity may be better. I wish everyone on the forum a safe and healthy New Year. We all are blessed and gratitude makes all the difference. Peace.

[Gene C]

We've mentioned the song "I Heard The Bells On Chrismas Day" but it's been several years, and the message is good also for New Years.
2020 has been a tough year, but let's try to keep things in perspective.

My good friend Anita sent me some information on this song.

the following background information is from a Blog by Jocelyn Green.on 12/14/2016.

"Now let's scroll back in time and take a look at how this song was born. During the Civil War, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was informed by a letter dated March 14, 1863, that his oldest son Charles Appleton Longfellow had left home to join the Union army--without Henry's blessing.

The letter said, in part: "I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer," he wrote. "I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good." By November, he was severely wounded in the Battle of New Hope Church (in Virginia) during the Mine Run Campaign. Coupled with the recent loss of his wife Frances, who died as a result of an accidental fire, Longfellow was inspired to write "Christmas Bells" on Christmas Day, 1863. Henry's personal tragedy was wrapped in the national tragedy of the nation's civil war. The lyrics are below. The fourth and fifth verses you'll find here refer directly to the Civil War and are usually left out of the traditional Christmas song.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

The hope Longfellow found among crisis can still be ours today.

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be uponhis shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this" (Isiaha 9:6-7)."

The music has gone through some changes over time
This first music video is the most recent.
On this video the comments tells the story behind the writing of the song.
Be sure you read them, they start down at the 4th comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7670CXvPX0

another version by Frank Sinatra with a more traditional tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QIFcALCIws

Happy New Year

[wpbinzel]

Happy New Year to all!!!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Happy New Year to everyone!

I posted this song back in 2013 - and think it appropriate to remind thereof now:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h4qNUsWTgn8

"By gracious powers" ("Von guten Mächten") is THE hymn to be sung on New Year's Day - with a wonderful tune and a sad history. It was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in prison shortly before the turn of the year 1944/45 while he was awaiting his execution.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Feb. 4, 1906 - Apr. 9, 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, and member of the anti-nazi resistance movement. He was also involved in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and hanged in April 1945, just 23 days before the German surrender.

It's incredible how someone can have such peace of mind to write such a hopeful song under these circumstances!

I believe A. Lincoln could have related to it in the war years!


By gracious powers

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
Oh, give our frightened souls the sure salvation
for which, O Lord, You taught us to prepare.

And when this cup You give is filled to brimming
with bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world You give us
the joy we had, the brightness of Your Sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through,
and our whole life shall then be Yours alone.

[Steve]

Have a Happy New Year - 2021- everybody!

[AussieMick]

( Eva, the bravery of Dietrich Bonhoeffer will never be forgotten. I like to think that he would have been The Man At The Gate ...)

Some of you may have seen the film called The King's Speech. It concerns the difficulties that King George VI had in dealing with a severe stammer. In 1939 he gave a Christmas radio broadcast to the British Empire when Britain seemed to be facing annihilation.

He quoted from the start of a poem by Minnie Haskins ... and it seems apt at this time ...
"The Gate of The Year" :-

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
So heart be still:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gate_of_the_Year

[Eva Elisabeth]

Most cultural events and concerts have been canceled since Corona, but if any place sticks to cultural traditions despite all, it's Vienna.
If you want to start the New Year with an uplifting and inspiring event, please go here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dIPQGHdWbNs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qj3CXHw_hvY
The "Golden Hall" is said to provide the best acoustic of all concert halls, and, like with Stradivari's violins, no one knows why.

[RobertLC]

Eva,

Thanks for sharing. Last night I had a chance to listen to some of this music. I have seen video of other concerts in the “Golden Hall” before. It is certainly a magnificent building. Even though it was constructed in the 19th century, I doubt that a building could be constructed today to match its beauty and quality.

You are right, fine arts seem to continue in Vienna.

Thanks again.

Bob

[Anita]

Happy New Year 2021! See a short 1.17 minute video by Doris Kerns Goodwin

New Year's Day, 1863: Lincoln signs the Emancipation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9OhMkuiwNc