A New Year's Reminder

 

I’ve had another hectic week. The children are gone again, but I’m still chamfering Roland around after his knee surgery. So instead of writing an original post, I’m copying a poem by one of my favorite poets. “What God Hath Promised” by Annie Johnson Flint reminds us that God will be with us throughout the coming year.

What God Hath Promised

God hath not promised skies always blue

Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;

God hath not promised sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

 

God hath not promised we shall not know

Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;

He hath not told us we shall not bear

Many a burden, many a care.

 

God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,

Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;

Never a mountain rocky and steep,

Never a river turbid and deep.

 

But God hath promised strength for the day,

Rest for the labor, light for the way;

Grace for the trials, help from above;

Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

 

By Annie Johnson Flint

New Year, Same Person: Some Things Never Change

 

My brother was going through some boxes that my mother left behind after her death, and he came across a report card from my first year in school. I was seven years old and attending The Community School in Amman, Jordan, which was a private school for English-speaking students.

It’s amazing how closely that progress report matches up with my subsequent life. For example, “Her reading is very good. She is eager to read and devours any book given to her.” Or, when discussing mathematics, “Very good & quick. She can now do addition, subtraction & multiplication sums without difficulty. She finds problems easy to solve.” English and math were always my strongest subjects, and I am still devouring books.

Then there were those subjects that weren’t my strengths then and still aren’t today. The progress report doesn’t give grades, and Mrs. Palmer was good at wording things diplomatically. For example, here is the comment on geography. “This new subject does not yet mean much to her.” And in spite of being a world traveler, it still doesn’t. (I am better with those places I have actually visited, however.)

Or here is what she said about handwriting and spelling, which were always my worst subjects and the only ones I ever got Ds in during elementary and high school. “She has tried very hard with her writing and has made satisfactory progress. The letters are now formed more evenly. Textbook work good. She has made a good start in spelling.”

Some things do change, of course. Consider these comments: “All her oral work is hampered with shyness” and “she is still somewhat nervous and shy with adults.” I’m still an introvert, but I’ve worked very hard to overcome my shyness. Many of my acquaintances would be surprised to learn that it was ever one of my major characteristics.

The other big difference is that I wasn’t writing stories back then. But I have always had a vivid imagination, so I may have made them up in my mind.

The point I’m trying to make is that our early years often predict our later ones. And I hope that Mrs. Palmer’s final comments are still true today.

“Kathryn is a helpful little girl. She is always eager to learn & has made good progress in all her work.”

I’d be happy to leave that as my legacy.

I Wish You Courage

Schindler's List was the first.

On December 31, 1994, when our children were eleven and eight, we started a family tradition. We had always taken Caroline and John to the New Year's Eve service at our church, and that didn't change. But now we waited until after church to eat and had a supper consisting of cheese and crackers, raw vegetables, and bagels with cream cheese. And we ate on TV trays in the family room while watching a rented movie.

Schindler's List was rated R, but Roland and I thought our children show know about the Holocaust in all its horror. So we decided to watch the movie with them that New Year's Eve.

Some of the years following didn't have a Schindler's List equivalent, and then we selected lighter fare. But our first choice was always a movie that carried a strong message and was better watched in our presence.

As the children grew up and left home, Roland and I continued the tradition, although we now choose movies just because we want to see them. Last Saturday night's movie, however, fit the original criteria, and it happened by default. I wanted to see the movie, but Roland agreed mostly because he wasn't thrilled with any of the other choices. He thought it was a chick flick, and I expected it to be simple entertainment. We were both wrong.

We watched The Help.

I highly recommend The Help to anyone who hasn't seen it. I don't want to give away too much, but the basic plot revolves around a young journalist writing a book about the lives of black women working as maids in white households. On a deeper level, the movie deals with racism in the South in the early 1960s, and although it has touches of humor, it is also grimly realistic.

And it contains the same message as Schindler's List. Overcoming injustice takes a lot of courage, but it is worth the risk. We don't have to be part of the threatened group, either. Schindler was not a Jew, and the writer in The Help wasn't black. In fact, she was raised to be a typical Southern belle.

So here's my resolution for 2012 and my wish for you this year: to have the courage to take a stand against injustice.

That won't keep us safe, but it will make us better people.

Wishing You a Flawed New Year

Flawed? Did I really say flawed? Yes, I did. I hope you have a happy 2011, but I can't promise it. I can promise that you'll have a flawed one.

I just finished reading Vanity Fair by William Makepiece Thackeray. It's a satire (heavily laced with sarcasm) written in the mid-1800s about "genteel" life earlier in that century. Its subtitle is A Novel Without a Hero.

In fact, Vanity Fair has both a hero and a heroine. The hero is large and clumsy and has a heart of gold, and I love the character. The heroine is gentle and soft-hearted and meek. Her meekness drove me crazy, but good fiction reflects life, and real people are flawed. Even the hero is blinded by his love for and loyalty to family and friends.

It isn't just the characters who are flawed, though. Each year they live through is flawed, too, and some of those years contain burdens almost too hard for them to bear. Fiction reflecting life again. And if the characters had it easy, who would read Thackeray's story?

If you're hoping for a perfect 2011, you're bound to be disappointed. If you're hoping for a happy one, you may or may not get it. All I can promise is that you'll have a flawed one, because that's what life is like. So I wish you a flawed and happy 2011.

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The drawing at the head of this post is "Mr. Joseph Entangled," which appears to have been one of the original drawings for Vanity Fair. Thackeray drew his own illustrations.