The works of British poet John Oxenham (1852-1941) resonated with me in 1955 in Atlanta, Georgia, when I took a course in poetry. Over the past 70 years, I have quoted his words often. Now, at the start of 2025, I share some of them with you:
To every woman and man there openeth
a way and ways and a way
The high soul climbs the high way
And the low soul gropes the low
And in between on the misty flats
the rest move to and fro
But every woman and man decideth
the way his soul should go.
Reach out, reach out and grasp the flow of time and make it yours as we start the new year, 2025. We are never weary if we take into our hands the moments with which we are blessed. Drink deeply from the cup of life and those waters, filling you up and overflowing, will sail you into a new set of minutes, days, and hours.
None of us can foresee how 2025 will inspire us – that is truly exhilarating. Why should we know? The unexpected touches us ever so dramatically. Only we can make the light of existence burn brightly and shine forth on a new path on which to walk, perhaps to run.
As Israelis and as Jews, we have been attacked, our enemies trying to destroy us and our great gifts to the world. Flowing through us is the blood of our ancestors – the blood which was stolen from us in the gas chambers of the past and in the horrors of the past 15 months. Those stolen in the blink of an eye, our hostages snatched from us – we hope and pray, still alive.
You can!
In this new year, we must each ask ourselves who we are. What we are. We must not attempt to slow down the flow of sands in the hourglass. We must make every grain count. We must integrate those sands into our bodies and produce the unexpected. Is it an advanced cellphone that can film what we do so we can immediately watch it. That is what these new technologies with time, words, pictures can do when watched – make us rerun the film of what we are actually doing. When mistakes are visible, they can be corrected almost instantly. Errors can be erased.
Frequently unexpected words can motivate us. English poet Henry Van Dyke wrote, “Life is an arrow/therefore you must know/What mark to aim at/how to use the bow/then draw it to the head and let it go.”
To add to this challenging thought are the words of renowned American justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. “I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving,” he said. “We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” The arrow carries us forward in the direction we choose to move.
Perhaps the biggest test can be found in the words of poet Walter D. Wintle:
If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t,
If you like to win, but you think you can’t
It is almost certain you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are
You’ve got to think high to rise,
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!
You can, you can, you can!
Happy 2025.■
The writer is a retired rabbi from Atlanta, Georgia, who lives in Jerusalem. He can be contacted at geff706851@yahoo.com