Welcome to the New Year (song recording)

 I wrote this song yesterday as I was carrying mail and packages along my route. I made a low-fi, basement recording of it today after church. 

Welcome to the new year with old woes
fighting again with old friends and new foes
midnight terror rocket blast
all the horrors of the past
continuing

Welcome to the New Year

Welcome to the new year with old woes,
fighting again with old friends and new foes
midnight terror rocket blast
all the horrors of the past
continuing

Welcome to the new year and another war
what the hell is this one for?
This misery will never end
while virtue bows and justice bends
to evil men

Welcome to the new year just like old times
waking up to news of your war crimes
all the blood that you have spilled
all the people you have killed
gleefully

Welcome to the new year, let it be
something more than our history
a year when we persist
a year when we resist
your cruelty

Happy New Year

 “May it be a damn sight better than the last one.” Col. Sherman T. Potter 

Background Images for Everyone - 2017

I had, for several years, been creating and sharing background images for you (or someone like you) to download and use as your (or like your) very own. Then, during 2016, I sorta' fell out of the habit, I guess. I just sorta' forgot, I guess. I dunno.

But.

I am going to try to be more diligent about it again this year (2017). And to that, here is the first for a new year. Happy New Year and what not. Use these background images in your projects at home, work, school, church, or where-ever. I only ask two things: 1) that you share them freely with others and 2) that you tell others that you found the images here.

Happy Hogmanay

Happy Hogmanay

The Obligatory Happy New Year's Post

Here is my obligatory "Happy New Year" Post - even though the Christian New Year began back on December 1 with the first week of Advent.

Happy New Year - may it be a good one.

The Last Day of the (Calendar) Year

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Is New Year’s Eve/Day a Holiday? An Internal Debate

Is New Year’s Eve/Day a Holiday – that is, is it a holy day?  My own mind takes opposing opinions.

No.  New Year’s Eve/ Day should not be considered a holy day.  There is nothing particularly special or religious about this particular day.  For Christians – particularly those Christians who follow the liturgical year of the Church, the “New Year” began with the first Sunday of Advent.  This secular New Year is no more (but also no less) holy than any other day.

Yes. New Year’s Eve/Day should be considered a holiday – a day to reflect upon the year that has passed, to make confession, and to prepare for the year ahead by making renewed commitments.  John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, originated Watch Night Services (or Covenant Renewal Services) on New Year’s Eve as an alternative to the drunken revelry of other non-church going celebrants.

Still No.  Any day is a good day for confession and covenant renewal.  Why limit it to this particular 24 hours?  Besides, a holiday created as a “Christian alternative” to secular or non-religious celebration seems like a weak foundation for a holiday.  There’s no biblical support for New Year’s Day as a holiday.

There’s no biblical support for Christmas as a holiday either, but are you suggesting that we should stop celebrating Christmas?

Actually, that’s not a bad idea…

At the Year's End

At the year's end we think back, reflect. Some of us pray.  Many of us resolve to do better, to be better.  At the year's end...



I created this song in Ableton Live 8 and used a sound from the Freesound Project:
Shembles

Feel free to download it if you like the song.

A New Year’s Blessing

May God bless us as we wait

with candles and watchnight vigils,
with anxieties and fears, with hopes and plans;
May God bless us as we wait.

There is a season for everything
even this, the end of the world
coming as it does at the end of every year.
The end is nigh; a new heaven and a new earth
waiting in the wings with the New Year.
May God bless us one and all.

May he wipe away our tears,

may their season be passed,
            may they, like the sea they have filled, be no more.

May he say to us who wait,
                “Come, come you who are blessed,
                come into the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world.”
May he welcome us in this New Year.