Friday 1 January 2010

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

One of my favourite quotes/poems is the beginning of the poem popularly known as 'The Gate of the Year' written by Minnie Louise Haskins in 1908. It was perhaps most famously quoted by King George VI in his 1939 Christmas Address just a few months after Britain had entered World War 2. The words remind us as we stand at the beginning of another year that although we have no idea what lies ahead God knows, and He has promised to be with us.
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.