I’ve just finished listening to CBS Sunday Morning’s retrospective of notables who have died in 2005—great figures in politics, entertainment, sports, religion, the arts, and other spheres of human activity. Their retrospective for 2005 is here (it appears to work properly only under IE). I’ve got to admit it’s hard to reflect on the remarkable people who have departed from our midst these days—people like John Paul II, Ossie Davis, George Kennan, Arthur Miller, or Rosa Parks. Yes, there were giants in the earth in those days. Our lives seem less with every passing year. Where we will find titans like these?
Well, the answer is that they’re born every day.
It is the nature of our experience is that we only know what has already happened not what will come to be.
In 2006 a great writer will be born. In 2006 a great religious leader will be born. A man who will discover the cure to a disease that has killed or maimed millions. A woman who will invent something that will make the world richer. A political leader who will free his people.
But we won’t know about them until it’s already happened and that is still in the future.
Our iconography of the new year reflects this. In the picture up above there’s Father Time cradling the infant New Year in his arms. Here’s another example:
The old 1890 is shown the door; Mr. Punch holds up the infant 1891 in joy and admiration.
Someone more knowledgeable in the fine arts than I like Alexandra at All Things Beautiful or more knowledgeable in history like my friend Callimachus at Done With Mirrors could tell you how far back this understanding of the change in the year goes back. Obviously, it goes back at least to the 19th century but I suspect it goes back a lot further than that.
I don’t know about you but 2005 has been a very hard year. Like all of us I’ve seen the terrible aftermath of the tsunami, the ongoing violence in Iraq, the incredible damage done by Hurricane Katrina, and the disaster we’ve ignored far too much in the earthquake in Pakistan. But it’s been hard personally as well.
But wonderful things have happened as well. The Orange, Cedar, and Purple democratic revolutions in Ukraine, Lebanon, and Iraq. Growth in the world economy. The first patient successfully treated for rabies ever. Remarkable heroism and charity in response to the natural disasters.
So let’s put the old year behind us and look to the promise of the new.
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith ‘A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’
“CBS Sunday Morning’s retrospective of notables who have died in 2005”
Thank you. That’s an interesting list. I regret that they did not include Marla Ruzicka, who died far too young in Iraq, where she helped civilian victims of war and promoted the US image.
I wrote about her today:
http://atlanticreview.org/archives/243-Marla-Ruzicka,-civilian-victims-and-reconciliation.html
Happy New Year, Dave.