New Year's Day

And so we’re told this is the golden age

And gold is the reason for the wars we wage

Though I want to be with you

Be with you night and day

Nothing changes

On New Year’s Day

~  U2

Although U2 recorded this song in 1983 in response to the Polish Solidarity Movement, Bono said it began as a love song.  Lech Walesa, a leader of the Polish Solidarity Movement, was jailed, along with others, when the Movement was outlawed.  Years later, Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I suppose the first two lines have always been true and always will be true, so there was nothing prescient about those 1983 thoughts.  The lines that grab me are the last two.  “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.”  And yet we persist in viewing the first day of the new year as one of promises and resolutions and new beginnings, don’t we?  I’m as guilty as you are!  Why, I’m going to lose five pounds and curtail my wine habit and read five chapters every night and volunteer at a soup kitchen and write a novel (or at least a blog post every day) and create world peace! 

But the truth is, nothing changes.  There is still war and poverty and injustice.  There is still racism and hatred and violence.  There is still greed and anger and envy.  Those Seven Deadly Sins never change.  (Okay, take a time out here and try to name all seven.  I’ll wait.)

Nothing changes.  But there is still laughter and daylight and the smell of lavender and sage.  There is still hopscotch and redwood forests and river stones.  There is still birdsong and wood fires and quaking aspens.

Draft beer.  Basil and oregano.  Oceans and mountains.  Rock and roll.  Poetry.  Skin-on-skin touch.  Back roads.  Sea salt caramel gelato.

There’s still a Nobel Peace Prize.

(Pride. Envy. Wrath. Gluttony. Lust. Sloth. Greed.)