"Who knows but we shall be better the next year than we have been in the past? At any rate. I wish you a really new year--commencing from the instant you read this,--and happy or unhappy according to your deserts."Thoreau has a unique way about him. He's straightforward and hopeful. It's like he sensed that he has such little time on the earth so he wasn't going to fool around. This one little snippet expresses so much. A new year. real newness, not just superficial window dressing. No Potemkin villages in our lives. Newness beginning now. Better is not the goal, but newness is. Behold, God says. I make all things new. Love always makes everything new. New every morning.
~~Henry David Thoreau, Letters to a Spiritual Seeker, Letter 20.
1.08.2008
Thoreau on Newness
I stumbled across this today in reading Thoreau.
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3 comments:
Someone sent me an email yesterday and said, "Don't you love the word 'new'?" And yes, I do, though I hadn't thought of it before, and now it pops up again on your post. What hope there is in new beginnings and in the words, "I make all things new". My heart soars.
Someone sent me an email yesterday and said, "Don't you love the word 'new'?" And yes, I do, though I hadn't thought of it before, and now it pops up again on your post. What hope there is in new beginnings and in the words, "I make all things new". My heart soars.
Great post Kevin. I have only read a little Thoreau, from Walden Pond. I would like to read it all and the Letters to a Spiritual Seeker that this post refers to also.
"I wish you a really new year--commencing from the instant you read this...
I like what you said "Newness beginning now"
I also love the newness that can be found in old things - you are right, Love makes every thing new.
Peace
Keren
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