Perspective For A New Year

Sam Burnham, Curator
​@C_SamBurnham

Find The Beauty In The Gloom

i left out from the house early on Sunday morning. Never mind why as that’s not the point. When I exited the front door I was hit by the stillness and silence in the air. The ground was wet from the rain overnight and in the early morning hours. The sky was overcast and more rain was expected but it wasn’t raining in that moment. There was a bit of misty fog here and there. It was cool but not cold - a fairly typical late December morning in Georgia.

As as I gazed up toward the sky I noticed the hardwoods - oaks mostly, but with a stray pecan, ash, or hickory here and there - were all bare. That’s not a new development but seeing them cast against the backdrop of the incoming rain clouds provoked some gloom just a a crow flew overhead, it’s loud calls, five or six that seemed more like a repetitive echo of one, jarred my ears. It was like stepping into a wasteland. I was one lonesome soul walking in a world of death.

​That’s no no way to start the morning.

Beginnings have beginnings themselves. How you start a day could be how you start a week, a month, or even a year. Such a bleak start to a day could be a bleak start to something bigger. It doesn’t have to be. Let me stop long enough to say I hate the “New Year, New Me” approach to the new year. It is typically a hollow approach that rarely sees February and never sees March. But beginnings are important. So my goal is to not let the gloom of a bleak season overwhelm me and drag down the start of the new year. There’s much to look forward to.

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​Christmas and college football are about to abandon us but I have a Navy boot camp graduation to attend. We’ve got A.H. Stephens’s birthday to celebrate. Springtime is coming. Vidalia season. Garden fresh tomatoes. This list could go on and on.

But we also have goals and dreams for ABG. We want to grow this year, both in audience and in content. We want to grow not just for greed or the sake of growth but rather to publish things that matter, that make a difference, that celebrate and encourage the people and land we love. Y’all have been so gracious and I can’t believe how many people stop by to see what’s on this site. I’m thankful for each one. And I ask that if you enjoy what you find here, share it with a friend or two. I’d appreciate it.

Now we turn the page on the calendar. This begins our fifth year since branching out from a Blogger site. I see the rain clouds. I hear that pesky crow. And yes, it might even snow before this winter is over. While our resolutions won’t make it to March, that at least means March is coming. So begin these bleak mornings with the knowledge that they pass and that they don’t have to dictate how the whole year goes. We have a say.

2019 better be ready. Here we come.