An article from the Cathedral Times
by the Very Reverend
Samuel G. Candler,
Dean of the Cathedral of St.
Philip
For me, New Year's Day arrived on the day before. That's when
my wife and I decided to clean out the supply closet. Our closet, just
outside the kitchen, is where we seem to keep everything we might need
in a hurry. Over the years, that closet has collected food, medicine,
office supplies, maps, charging cords, fishing rods, walking sticks, old
shirts, running shoes, wine, whiskey, and tool
boxes.
In some cultures, the observance of a calendar
new year is associated with repentance and amendment of life. For
instance, the Jewish New Year is Rosh Hashanah, which begins a ten day
period leading up to Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. During those
days, observant Jews repair relationships with God and with humanity.
The American tradition of "New Year's Resolutions" goes something like
that. As a new calendar year begins, we use that occasion to resolve
some new habit or practice; the new year marks new resolve. (Of course,
many of our resolutions fail to last even those first ten
days!)
So, my wife and I cleared out, cleaned out,
and reorganized our supply closet. It was like a Spring Cleaning! (In
fact, Spring Cleaning has also been associated with new year's
practices: before the modern calendar, the new year began around March
25 each year.)
The easiest things to throw away with
the old year were all our old medicines, because their expiration dates
were clearly marked. Why is that we had fifteen half-used packages of
cold and fever medications? Were they really so good that we got well
using only half the package? Or do we usually wait until we are already
halfway through our illness before we ever buy any medicine for it?
Old foods, however, were a different matter. I, for
instance, do not pay attention to expiration dates, while my wife seems
eager to pitch the can or bottle even if the expiration date is three
months away. I did get her to agree to keep the old bottles of olive oil
for up to one year past the expiration date (surely olive oil can't go
bad, can it?).
Other stuff was even easier to throw
away. Torn carrying bags and broken luggage. A coffee machine that I had
forgotten had stopped working five years ago. Rusted fishing tackle
that was stuck to the closet shelf.
I even found
some very bad bottles of wine that had, obviously, not been stored
properly. The old soured wine actually came in handy that
night, New Year's Eve itself. My daughter and her husband, with two
friends, joined us for a grand dinner"”of leftovers, actually!"”very tasty
and efficient. But we did have some excellent wine. Then I brought in
the old supply closet wine that I knew had turned disastrously bad. This
was my lesson on how to taste bad wine, and it worked very
well.
Even the best wine turns bad, at some point,
especially if it has been stored improperly. Even the best years have
elements that need to be forgotten, or thrown out, or remedied. And
every new year has some possibility that we need to clean the shelves
for, that we need to prepare for. Here's to the possibilities that await
you this new calendar year!
And, remember, every
new day can be a day to begin again; every new day can be the start of a
new year. The Daily Office lesson for December 31 last week was from 2
Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, he/she is a new creation. The
old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
The Very
Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St.
Philip
