At the end of 2003, the beginning of 2004, I spent New Year's eve in Jerusalem. It was an unusual way to spend such a significant turning point in the year because it was so completely different from any other New Year's eve I had ever experienced. I remember the evening for the quiet beauty of the night, the stars above, the calm peace down below. No parties, no fireworks and no countdown to midnight. No great expectations that the old was out and the slate was wiped clean. No New Year's resolutions. No false hope that this year would magically be different from last year.
( It makes sense now as I reflect back on it. In Israel the New Year is celebrated back in October. December the 31st is not a special date in Israel. The Jewish calendar is totally different, marking the passing of time according to God's counting. The Jewish New year does not mark itself with drunken parties, but rather a solid day of national prayer and fasting, Yom Kippur. To mark the start of the New Year the Shophars horn is blown.
Funnily enough as I re - edit this piece at the start of October 2019 I have just listened to the Shophar horn being blown to welcome in the Jewish New Year over the radio airwaves on one of the most popular radio stations in Great Britain. I have never heard this marked before and to be honest it makes total sense that in the middle of political turmoil and chaos over Brexit we should be blowing a Shophar horn. The spiritual always precedes the natural. The sound waves will always be the place battles are fought initially. Sound will always precede the end result. Biblically the worshipper will always go ahead of the battle. Biblically the prophetic and the intercessor will speak words out loud that shape the future long before the reality is seen.
So today as the Shophar horn was blown over Great Britain, it was more than just a physical sound. This was a prophetic act, marking a New Year in Gods timing and a New season for our nation.)
Back to the trip in December 2003. I was browsing some old photos from that trip and the little pieces I wrote to remember the time spent there. The photos come from some old work files I have from my days with JH Ranch, I didn't take them but I think Lauren Bowen Train did. So all credit to her for the collage of photos.
Here are a few extracts from my journal ...
the prettiest New Year's eve ever.
Not a damp cold Istanbul in a Russian restaurant stuffed with people and Vodka
Not a hot sultry African night floating on Lake Kariba amidst crocodiles and hippos, fighting off the mosquitos, counting down the quiet hours with my mother & cousins
But a frosty winters evening,
the air clean & Jerusalem gloriously settled and at peace ...
We walked streets, passed twisted olive trees and lines of traffic cutting clean rivers of movement against stone walls ... a windmill set in the stones and gardens, a young couple sitting on a bench drinking in the view,
before us the old city, the ancient walls, the cats, the church towers and TV ariels ...
(Photo credit - Lauren Bowen Train)
Alongside my own thoughts on the passing of the year I have scrawled down these passages reflecting on the passing of time and how we perceive it ...
* Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow's is today's dream.
And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. Khalil Gibran : On time
* He has made everything beautiful in it's time.
Also He has put eternity in their hearts,
except that no-one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
The Bible - Ecclesiastes 3:11
My brief evening in Jerusalem was so memorable that here I am writing about it over fifteen years later. The words fail me as I try to convey just what exactly was so special. The place was so normal, so calm, so quiet and I think it was a Shabbat which meant the city was closed. No work. No restaurants open. Just families and friends out enjoying a crisp winter evening walk together. Whereas most of my New Years eve's are forgotten because so little marks them out as special. My evening in Jerusalem has remained with me over the years. In hindsight all I can put it down to was a feeling of being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and feeling totally slap bang in the centre of contentment, wholeness and peace.
* Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world. Even from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
* For a thousand years in Your sight,
Are like yesterday when it is past, And like a watch in the night. The Bible - Psalm 90:1,4
So here we are at the start of 2018.
I initially wrote this piece at the end of 2017. For me 2017 was marked by many significant events of which 2 stood out as historic markers in my life. The end of Mugabe's reign of power in Zimbabwe and America's move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Both were briefly noted by the rest of the world and one caused such venomous backlash that I was slightly scared to even write this blog post. But here it is despite the fear factor that talking about Israel entails.
' To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven ... '
The Bible - Ecclesiastes 3
Today in 2019 as I re-edit this piece I sit amazed as Mugabe has now passed away and Great Britain sits at the start of a new season.