Growing up in our little apartment my mother kept out several things I distinctly remember.  On her baby grand piano there was my baby picture flanked by my bronzed baby shoes, and a set of bronze praying hands.  Over the years my baby picture was replaced with older ones of me as I grew and my bronzed baby shoes were packed away.  Those praying hands, though, never left.  They were a constant throughout my entire childhood.  Normally I dislike detached body parts (like busts) but there was something about seeing those hands cupped together and tilted slightly upward in prayer that never failed to move me.  Despite looking slightly masculine in nature, I imagined they still could have belonged to either a man or a woman.  It seemed to me they were made from a kneeling position, allowing the layered cuffs around them to fall gently back in order to better offer themselves to God.  Recently I came across this small pair pictured above in a catalogue.  I had told my husband how much I’d always loved my folks’ praying hands and he and our little girl surprised me with them as a gift for Mother’s Day.  They now lovingly reside on our den table so that every time we sit on our sofa we can see them and can be reminded.  Prayer takes many forms:  thanksgiving, worship, confession, and supplication are the ones I tend to use most often.  Mahatma Gandhi said, “Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.”  When I came across that it made me think of the Episcopal practice of saying morning and evening prayers.  I confess I am enjoying being able to participate in morning prayers now from the comfort of home.  I like to see that as one positive of this Covid-19 virus.  I was never able to make daily prayers at church and now I can even play them back if I choose.  Both Eastern and Western Christian churches (Orthodox, Anglican, Catholic, Assyrian, Lutheran and some other Protestant denominations) still practice the Liturgy of the Hours (multiple prayers said daily.)  This grew from the Jewish practice of reciting prayers at set times of the day known as zmanim (literally “hours” in Hebrew.)  Matins (“morning” in French,) Lauds (prayers at dawn,) Prime (the first hour of prayer,) Terce (mid-morning,) Sext (midday,) None (mid-afternoon,) Vespers (“at the lighting of the lamps” in late afternoon,) and Compline (the last prayer said before bed.)  There are five daily prayers prescribed in Islam.  To this day, one of my fondest memories is of hearing the Muslim call to prayer sung and projected throughout the medina during Ramadan while we were in Tangiers.  I know Hindus and Buddhists have daily mantras and meditations as well.  Even those who are not religious can be seen clasping their hands together at times.  For me the praying hands are a symbol of hope, gratitude, solace, praise, and peace.  As my daughter grows up I hope she will view praying hands in much the same way I did.  They serve as a reminder that prayer is both an opening of the heart and a closing of worry … the key and the bolt.

I have been thinking a lot about change lately.  For me change is scary.  I have mentioned before that my little family and I do not do well with change.  However one of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from my Grandmother-in-law, who is now 93.  She is kind, funny, and self-deprecating.  I remember about a decade ago she told me that the world keeps changing and we have to keep on changing with it.  I think some people crave change and others don’t.  I have lived in only five places my entire life, and they have all been within a 15 mile radius of one another.  I have never been the type to suddenly change furniture or hair styles out of “boredom.”  Rather, I prefer the familiar, unless it just breaks down or simply becomes too dated.  I suppose the only area where I can say I readily embrace change is with technology.  When I first came to SMU most of the kids had their own private computers … and had for years.  I not only lacked my own; I had barely even touched one.  As a journalist major, I went from clinging to old school note taking with pen and paper to being forced by one of my professors to type my thoughts directly onto a computer.  At the time I thought he was mad.  I realize now he was so set upon helping me because he was struggling to do the same.  At first I can remember being incredibly intimidated; crippled with fear and embarrassment … and then I realized I’d have to adapt in order to pass my classes and progress.  Fast forward about a decade later:  when I first got married and we bought our home.  I discovered my husband kept losing his keys; I mean CONSTANTLY!  I tried hiding spares to no avail; he’d just lose them, too.  At one point I had a locksmith in my directory because he kept losing them.  Of course it wasn’t just the house, it was his car, too.  Once I had to drive all the way out to the Dallas/Fort Worth International airport late at night because he’d locked himself out of the car.  It may have seemed like spending money but I finally took charge and saved a ton of money (and stress) by going keyless.  Our house has been connected with a wireless alarm system and cameras accessible by phone for years.  In addition, when my husband complained he could not work the TV I had the different remotes combined into one as well.  When he lost the remote I discovered there was an app that could be used from the phone just as easily.  Yes, he has lost his phone several unfortunate times but I have it backed up and now it is only accessible biometrically.  As an extra precaution I can lock and wipe his phone remotely within seconds but restore it all to a new one in minutes, should the need arise.  He can now start and lock his car from his phone, as well as control the climate and all of the lights in our home.  Now when we go on walks we can lock the door with our hand and not risk losing keys.  Change can be stressful or restful; it can be forged or forced, and sometimes it can just simply be.  The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”  After 16 years at the same church I felt we should change.  This is the parish in which I attended before so many of my life changes took place.  It is there that I met my beloved husband, got married, baptised our child, buried my mother, and where our little girl received her first Holy Communion.  I am still learning that change does not need to be the result of something bad.  As I grow older I am trying to accept that all things change.  I like the idea that out of an ending comes a new beginning.  And so, as this is the start of the first full week of the New Year, in a new decade, in this new millennium, I offer salutations to new beginnings.

My little one has a delightful habit of saying, “This is the best day ever!”  Today is not only the first day of a new year; it is the first day of the new decade in this new millennium.  As someone from the last century, 2020 still sounds somewhat futuristic.  January 1 (depending upon what calendar you follow) marks a new beginning.  My father always taught me to look forward, to have goals, and — above all — to always be grateful.  I can remember my mother often exclaiming, “This is the best *fill in the blank* I ever had!”  It became sort of a running joke that EVERYTHING was always “the best” she’d “ever had.”  Our child is so much like my mother; her namesake, it is uncanny.  I have watched my little one apply lip balm in the EXACT same manner in which my mother used to put on her lipstick.  I have watched her decorate things exactly the way I know my mother would have.  They love the same foods and have a shared love of playing the piano as well.  I cannot recall exactly when, but at a very early age our daughter start saying:  “THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!”  She has just as earnestly proclaimed it when we took her to Disney World as when we gathered leaves on our street for our Thanksgiving table.  Looking back on my childhood “bests” I realize that more often than not they did not involve money.  I loved taping our Halloween decorations on our apartment window every year.  I loved going to church each Sunday with my folks and watching them hold hands.  Money is of course not a bad thing; it is just not EVERYthing.  I think it is human nature to enter into a new year wanting to make personal improvements — whether that is making more money, paying more attention to our diet, carving out more time to exercise, or giving more effort to learning a new language or skill.  In the past, for whatever reason, I have always viewed an improvement as something “more.”  I should try more; do more; be more.  My mother gave me an appreciation for classical poetry, among many other things.  I cannot help but think of the British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, who was the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria’s reign.  However trite, this poem of his, “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” comes to mind:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

And so as we ring in this New Year, I shall strive to ring OUT some things for the first time:  doubt, despair, and darkness to name a few.  I shall focus instead upon faith, hope, and light.  And I resolve to find something between each new dawn and dusk that has made it the “best day ever.”