Thank you, to all of you who have taken a moment to pause and ponder with me this past year. It has been quite some year, most of it spent trying to evade the Covid-19 virus as best we could. The task continues! To usher in 2022 I have chosen a short poem by Warren Woessner. – New Year’s Eve. I have also added a link to a much longer poem by Brenda Hillman entitled Time Problem in which she has a conversation with her young daughter and with Stephen Hawkins as she sheds light on the double edged nature of time. You will need to give yourself a little time to read this one. My posts in January will be few but no doubt will pick up frequency come the end of January. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47173/time-problem
New Year’s Eve
by Warren Woessner
5 p.m., corner booth,
Oak Bar, Plaza Hotel,
New York City, Center
of the World of all
that matters.
Where a Belvedere martini,
up with a twist, contemplates you
like a languid gold fish
in a clear garden pool,
or a suspended tear
that you can take back inside,
like that first full breath,
in case you need it,
as the world gets ready
to start all over again again.
Prayer:
Eternal God,
your everlasting mercy
rises new in the morning of another year.
Give us grace to arise with Christ
who is our morning light.
In this new year of our life’s journey,
may we walk by faith in him,
and with a willing spirit
persevere to the end;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(from Book of Common Order)
Prayers, Poems, and Christian Ponderings 
I like the idea of the world starting all over again. We need to do things differently!
I enjoyed Hillman’s poem, new to me. Although we all experience the problem of time, in a way I miss the days when I thought I didn’t have enough of it! My mother would tell me that we always have time for the things we want to do, but we have to make time for the things we need to do. Coincidentally I read another poem just this morning, WH Auden’s For the Time Being. A line that struck me, “The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.” I feel that way during this pandemic, when, because of the things we can no longer do safely, we have plenty of time on our hands.
Thank you for the inspiration through all the prayers and poems, especially those of Advent leading us into the new year. Happy New Year and how I wish we were all raising a toast in the Oak Bar!
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Happy New Year. I do enjoy your comments and always find a pearl of wisdom in your thoughts.
Thanks
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