A year come and another gone.  We celebrate for what?  The easy answer is life is short, and one must seize any opportunity to make merry with friends that comes along.  That’s an answer that we can depend upon.  I think that we also celebrate in hope. The opportunities entailed in the next twelve months may be seized upon to advance the lot of all of us.   Could it be that we, our children, and grandchildren will emerge stronger and wiser, more compassionate after another twelve months of life?  Sometimes that feels like a lot to ask.  But we keep asking with every new year.

This Springsteen song is a prayer, one that is appropriate for the fold point of a new year.  The last twelve months are a memory, and the next twelve months before us are unknown, wild, untamed.  No one can know what the constant flow of time will bring.  Some patterns endure though, and Springsteen’s lyrics capture those so well.  There is work, in the wide world subject to the raw power of Nature, and the more enduring destruction of human greed, expressed in dehumanizing political policies.  Yet, hope endures.

Enjoy!   The lyrics are appended after the Youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNp-vVgPK6M

Jack Of All Trades
By Bruce Springsteen

I’ll mow your lawn, clean the leaves out’ your drain
I’ll mend your roof, to keep out the rain
I take the work that God provides
I’m a jack of all trades, honey we’ll be all right

I’ll hammer the nails, I’ll set the stone
I’ll harvest your crops, when they’re ripe and grown
I’ll pull that engine apart, and patch’er up ’til she’s running right
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right

The hurricane blows, brings the hard rain
When the blue sky breaks
It feels like the world’s gonna change
And we’ll start caring for each other
Like Jesus said that we might
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right

The banker man grows fat, working man grows thin
It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again
It’ll happen again, yeah they’ll bet your life
I’m a jack of all trades, darling we’ll be all right

Now sometimes tomorrow comes soaked in treasure and blood
We stood the drought, now we’ll stand the flood
There’s a new world coming, I can see the light
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right

So you use what you’ve got and you learn to make do
You take the old, you make it new
If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ’em on sight
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right