David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2019 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.
First, let me wish you a most blessed and happy New Year! May it be the best year for you!
2020 is a way of referring to perfect vision, so may this year bring us clarity of sight to see and know the truths that unite us and not the misperceptions that divide us. We are one people, one world, one great planetary wholeness of life. It is in this realization that we will find our best path forward in spite of all the voices that would tell us otherwise and break us into separate and warring camps.
The English Poet Laureate, Sir Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, wrote a poem in 1850 that expresses my hopes for all of us as we enter the third decade of the Twenty-First Century. I offer his poem as my David’s Desk to start our year. It is one hundred and seventy years old, but the sentiments are as current as today’s headlines. The last verse speaks of the Christ; if you prefer, then simply let this word represent the sacred in all of us and in all of life.
Blessings!
RING OUT, WILD BELLS
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.