As the Sun sets on 2022 and rises on ’23, what are we to make of another annum come and gone? The year began with hope, epitomized perhaps best by the thrilling sportsmanship of the Beijing Olympics. The Olympiad was particularly joyous in the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic and it seemed 2022 was starting with hope. Indeed, on New Year’s Day 2022 the entire world yearned for a year of health, of safety, of peace.
Lord Tennyson heralded the end of one year and the coming of the new in his poem “In Memoriam,” better known as “Ring Out Wild Bells.” Tennyson’s 1850 New Year’s prayer for the fading year and its successor sounds prophetic:
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.
Here you and I are now: reflecting back and peering ahead to 2023. Instead of Olympic spirit, China’s dictator class threatens its neighbors and faces a severe recurrence of the pandemic. Partisan attacks seem sharper than ever, particularly in Latin America where aged, corrupt authoritarians wielding bankrupt ideologies have returned to power in Nicaragua, Brazil, and elsewhere. In contrast, Tennyson calls for law and civility:
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Even though we expected 2022 to be a year of global recovery, for our health, our finances, and our spirits, parts of the world have not yet recovered from the coronavirus and its debilitating physical and economic impacts. Tyranny and lawlessness continue from Pyongyang to Kabul, and from Venezuela to the Congo. The plight of the least of these means they are no less vulnerable than a year ago: Muslim Rohingya, China’s Uighurs, Nigeria’s Christians, and the poorest of the world’s poor. Tennyson’s words portray compassion for those suffering, while still looking ahead expectantly:
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.
What of Ukraine? Though the flames of war burn elsewhere around the world, Russia’s evil invasion of Ukraine has brought Europe to the brink of continental war for the first time in generations. The tragedies of the conflict are many—from naive Russian conscripts forced to the frontlines to the grotesque attacks on Ukraine’s hospitals, schools, and churches. The incredible claims of Russia—that this is a war of liberation and de-Nazification—would be laughable if they were not continuing to be trumpeted around the world by Moscow and Beijing’s media dupes. The Russians make their claims in terms of blood, and history, and the rights of the victor, rather than what is true, and right and just:
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.
As we look ahead to 2023, will we lose hope? Can we endure another year of illness, poverty, strife, falsehoods, and violence? Tennyson was not hopeless but hopeful. He looked into a frosty, starlit, wintry night and heard the church bells pealing, “The old year is going, let him go!”
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.
There is hope in the new year, hope that mankind will be “valiant and free,” living with “sweeter manners” and “purer laws” according to “nobler modes of life.” We hope that we will live in the light of truth and right, that the common good will ring out in our discourse. We hope that there will be peace, both among nations but especially as the result of larger hearts and kindlier hands. As a Christian, my hope, as Tennyson’s, is in the “Christ that is to be.” Christ’s redemptive love is the foundation for that hope. Christ’s example of generosity and compassion call on all of us to ring out the “faithless coldness” our own times, the “mournful rhymes” of loss and destruction, and forsake greed and strife.
The bells are ringing—the last bells of Christmas 2022 and the welcoming bells for 2023. They awaken us to our responsibility to follow Christ’s model of charity, compassion, and hope. If there is to be kindness and generosity in the new year, it will be our choice. If there is hope in 2023, it must shine outward from our hearts. We can show “sweeter manners.” We can “ring the fuller minstrel in.” We can seek “redress for all mankind.” We can “ring out the false and ring in the true.” We can, we must, choose to “ring in the Christ that is to be” in what we say and think and do.
In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
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.