I’ve always been sentimental about brand new years. There’s so much potential for good. Bad too, of course, but let’s focus on the good. There are so many positive things that might happen in the world this year. For one thing, we have a new president coming into office, and with that comes a whole host of decisions that might get made in 2009 that could set our country on a different track. There are inventions waiting to be invented that might revolutionize science and medicine. Movies are waiting to get made that will win Oscars and define the landscape of cinema. Books are waiting to be written that will set the reading public on fire. Future classics in all the fields of art, are about to be born in 2009. Architecture is waiting to be designed that will begin to shift the way we think about the world we live in. Babies are waiting to be born that might be future presidents and artists and doctors and scientists.

We have a chance to change too this year. Maybe this will be the year we make adjustments to our behavior in any number of areas, so that when we’re old and grey we’ll look back and wonder how we could have lived any other way. Language and the way we use it will change this year. Priorities will change this year. Popular names, hobbies, and the fabric of daily life will all be subtly adjusted for better or worse. We might not even notice what’s happening but later on people will look back and say, “that was the year when everyone started doing…”

What will it be?

That’s the excitement and the mystery of a new year. The world is constantly in flux, never ceasing to morph into something new. We seldom stop to think about it, we just live in it, moving along in the current, caught up in the flow. But now we have a moment to stop and reflect. To wonder. To hope. And of course, to resolve to do everything in our power to help things to move in the direction we want them to go.

Here’s to the journey of a brand new year… may all its mysteries be golden ones.