Farewell, 2018, Welcome, 2019

And so farewell to 2018, a year of uncertainty, and welcome to 2019, a year of possibly even greater uncertainty.

We seem to live in an age that is uncertain. Of course, there have been times in the past which have been troubled, and as we were reminded last year, the end of the first of the two World Wars ended. In its aftermath came the epidemic of influenza, wiping out more people than actually died on the battlefield. And then the depression of the 1930s, and another World War.

Looking back, there are changes and uncertainties in almost every decade. The Suez crisis of the 1950s, the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s, which was potentially the first global crisis, where across the world, people could be effected by it, and watched the news to see how it unfolded.

In between, there are oases of calm, but as our world becomes more globalised, we are more aware of disasters elsewhere, and threat of terrorism, in a way that was not even quite as strong during the IRA’s Christmas bombing campaign, which was centred on just a few cities, and used car bombs. Today’s terrorist seeks to destroy without fear of killing themselves and to take down as many people as they can, and they can strike anywhere, although usually larger cities, it is not confined to capital cities but to wherever is most populous and can have most impact.

And once fear sets it, the stranger, the foreigner, are all suspect. Brexit was built on fear and survives on fear. If we head off the cliff face of a no deal, and times are bad, fear will drive the project on.

But apart from the merely human troubles, we are racing towards an environmental catastrophe. Never good at being other than short term, climate change is threatening the very fabric of our society in hitherto unforeseen ways. Even the deniers are now realising that something is happening, even if they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge human agency at work. And yet it is easy to see how small almost insignificant detritus from our society can effect the food chain. Microbeads and plastics are destroying the oceans ecosystems, and we are responsible – no one else.

New Year wishes – the uncertainty will not go away, but we need to work more together in community to meet challenges. Fear is never a good glue for binding a society together, as lessons from history show us.

The best world for uncertain times is perhaps that of Minnie Louise Haskins, cited by King George VI for his Christmas address to the nation:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.