Ordinary Time

Today is the end of Christmas and the beginning of Ordinary Time, and so I am sharing a song I wrote with you. It's about new beginnings, and persistence, and it is perhaps ironic that I had to spend more than a week prying myself out of perfectionist hell before I posted it. But anyway-- 

New Year's Day

I love a fresh start

I love a clean slate

I love a new leaf, I love a blank unblotted page

Where I can try again to shape a life

from a strand of unformed days

I begin as I hope to go on

We begin, we begin again we begin, we begin as we hope to go on

 

When I was younger

I thought next time I'd get it right

I thought I'd grown up

I thought my plans were watertight

But here in middle age I have

this middle-aged insight:

we just begin as we hope to go on

We begin, we begin again we begin, we begin as we hope to go on

 

BRIDGE:

False starts and do-overs lie ahead of me

But pit stops and way stations beckon hopefully

like showers, like confessionals

where we step forth fresh and clean

For in my failures I am learning to be free

In my failures I am learning to be free

 

Here on the threshold

I look across this span of days

I cannot know the trials, the gladnesses

that wait upon my way

But there'll be mornings full of mercies

there'll be treasuries of grace

So I'll begin as I hope to go on

We begin, we begin again we begin, we begin as we hope to go on

We begin as we hope to go on

 

New Year's Day - 1:9:22 3.38 PM

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Comments

[Melanie]

Lovely! Thank you for your gift of words and music. This 47 year old really feels the "here in middle age" of your song. It suits my current mood very well.

[Rachel Stroumsa]

Thank you! Beautiful (and courageous on your part). Have I told you that you don't sound at all the way I imagined in my head?

[Zagorka]

How wonderful.