The First of the Year

Madam: —

The holiday came knocking at your door, and you opened to it in welcome... You bought for your children, your husband, and yourself the loveliest clothes, and prepared for the family the finest kinds of food and sweets... You turned on the radio, and the air of your house filled with songs and music. A happy new year to you.

...It is the holiday, and the holiday is a day of pleasure, no doubt of that. But the holiday, the first of the new year, is a day of thanksgiving and a day of reckoning.

It is a day of thanksgiving... A span of our life has passed, bearing twelve full months, with their days and nights, their hours and minutes, bringing us much that gladdens and much that God has decreed for us. Have we reviewed this span and what it bore? Have we counted the blessings and the bounties and laid them in one pan of the scale, and counted what was fated and laid it in the other pan? Did we give thanks if the pan of good tipped in our favor, and were we patient — not ungrateful — if the other pan proved the heavier? And then, did we give thanks even so..?

There come to my mind at this hour words the prophet David repeated in his psalms. He said: "With what shall I repay the Lord for all His benefits?"

It may seem strange that a creature should repay his Creator, when all that this creature possesses is of his Lord's bounty. But are we not, in that, like the child who offers his mother a holiday gift, knowing that the price of this gift comes from his mother's own money? Yet he offers it in acknowledgment of her kindness and in gratitude to her. And did not the Almighty ordain almsgiving upon us in just this spirit? So it is with us: we may offer our thanks to God in the form of a sum of money sent to an orphanage or a charitable institution, or a piece of clothing or a meal offered to an orphan, or a smile of tenderness bestowed on a wretched invalid, or a bouquet of flowers sent to a hospital — these are kinds of thanksgiving that our spirits send up to heaven, expressing in practical form the creature's acknowledgment of gratitude to the Creator...

And so this day has been, from the beginning, a day of reckoning and settling of accounts, and so it remains. Businessmen add and subtract to see how much they earned during the past year, and how they may increase their profits or avoid losses; journalists publish for their readers an index of all the enjoyment they gave them during the year; and most refined ladies today keep an account book for the household, each one going over her budget to see whether she has spent wisely, and whether there are items she can strike out in the coming year. So come, let us open our own private ledgers to reckon our profits in them: —

...How was my relation with my husband during the past year — was it tinged with estrangement, or did it grow firmer and more understanding than the year before? Was I successful in managing my house, or were there criticisms offered me by my husband or my children, or that I offered myself? ...And how shall I avoid them in the coming year? How did I resolve my problems with my friends, with my little ones, and with the servants? Was I able to instill the ray of hope and resolve in the souls of those around me? Did my cultural and economic knowledge increase during the year, so that I can say it passed after having gained me things that help me to economize in my house, to care for my family's health, and to profit in general from what I have learned? ...And then, what is the program I shall prepare for the future?

...A day of reckoning — provided that among the foundations of this reckoning there be knowledge of self; otherwise, what is the worth of looking at our faults and seeing them as virtues to boast of? The words "call yourself to account" avail nothing unless they are preceded by the words "know yourself." Once we know the places of error and weakness in us and are strict in the reckoning, then we can assure the new year a better program than the program of the year gone by.

In the new year, let us thank God and call ourselves to account, let us move forward toward a noble goal, and let us build and work in every hour of the hours of the coming year, before it passes swiftly and leaves us asking how it passed — and how quickly it passed!

And a happy new year to you.