A New Year
01/01/14 05:24
A little after 7 pm last night I stepped out on our front porch and heard what I initially thought were gunshots. Quickly, however, there were simply too many blasts for that explanation to make sense. Then I remembered. Last summer, the 4th of July fireworks were cancelled due to the weather and possible fire danger. The city had arranged to save the fireworks for New Year’s Eve. As I scanned the sky to the north, sure enough I could see the fireworks, low on the horizon from my front porch. They were pretty impressive and went on for nearly 20 minutes. It was a fine celebration for a city of our size.
On the other hand, I wondered how many other folks had failed to remember that the display was set for last night. On the 4th of July we would have had an ice cream social and folks would have gathered on the church lawn for fellowship, refreshments, and a great place to view the fireworks. There would have been lawn chairs and blankets and a sense of community. Somehow that same spirit didn’t carry over to a 15-degree evening with snow on the ground. It might have been fun for those who were skating in Main Street Square, but there probably weren’t too many who remembered the celebration.
I didn’t grow up with a tradition of fireworks as part of the celebration of New Years, though around the world it may be the most common time for big fireworks displays. Although we don’t share the same date for New Years as the Chinese, it was probably in China where the tradition of fireworks to ring in a new year began. Around the world, there were some impressive displays.
Sydney Harbor, in Australia is an incredibly scenic place with the massive arch of the harbor bridge and the iconic opera house. Those folks know how to put on a really big fireworks show. It’s worth a look on YouTube if you’ve never seen it. The views from the professional film crews are probably better than anyone who can’t afford a yacht could get anyway. In Melbourne, the fireworks are blasted over the city from building tops and reflected in the Yarra River.
Manilla has a grand ferris wheel and enormous crowds gather to celebrate and watch their largest display of the year.
In North Korea, a country with challenges finding enough food to feed its people, no expense was spared to light up the sky over the Juche Tower and the Taedong River in Pyongyang.
Victoria Harbor and the Hong Kong convention center put on quite a display. There are multiple barges in the harbor which make the fireworks seem to erupt from the surface of the water.
In Indonesia, the central business district of Jakarta is the place for their display.
The Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan adds height to their display.
Singapore blasts their show over the financial district.
It is Red Square in Moscow; the Port of Marseille in France; the Ferris Wheel in Edinburg; the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin; The Thames River, London Eye and Big Ben in London; the Parthenon and Acropolis in Greece; the Coliseum in Rome; Cathedral Square in Vilnius, Lithuania; Copacabanba Beach in Rio de Janeiro; and Times Square in New York City.
The biggest display, however, was in Dubai. In just the first minute, Dubai shattered the previous world record for the biggest ever New Year’s Eve fireworks display according the Guinness World Records. Ten months of planning, over a half million fireworks spanning 94 kilometers of the Dubai coast with its man-made islands, 100 computers and 200 technicians. Around $6.7 million was the price tag for the show designed by US firm Grucci Fireworks. To put the blast in perspective, the previous world record was set by Kuwait in 2011, where they took an hour to ignite 77,282 fireworks. In Dubai this year they were blasting them off at rates near 100,000 per minute!
OK, so we weren’t spending a million dollars a minute and we were only getting eight or ten blasts per minute. But we had Grucci Firworks design and set up the display in Rapid City, and our show lasted 20 minutes, over three times as long as the one in Dubai. Not bad for a small town in the midwest.
I guess big celebrations are OK, but I’m not sure that fireworks are the most important part of a new year. I’m not much for drunken renditions of Auld Lang Syne, either.
Our celebrations tend to center around a few simple gatherings with friends. We share a few snacks or eat a meal, play a game, do a jigsaw puzzle or just sit and talk.
It is a bit early to tell that the days are getting longer and we know that we probably have some significant winter yet ahead of us, but there is a sense that something new is happening. Like the dormant bulbs under the ground, we know that the coming of new life sometimes takes time. Instead of a million-dollar-a-minute blast that can’t be sustained for more than just a few minutes, we have discovered that the real new life takes time and rarely is revealed in a single sudden moment.
There is a sense that something big is coming. I am anticipating that 2014 will be an important year in the life of our congregation. We’ll do some good ministry together and perhaps grow spiritually. It will be a big year in our family. There is already the promise of a new grandchild and other big events in our lives.
The real newness of 2014, however, is yet to be revealed. It will take time and hard work. The new year isn’t the product of a sudden blast, but rather a day-by-day construction that will emerge slowly.
It will take us a whole year to discover what God has in store for us.
Happy New Year!