2013: The Gate of The Year!

London, UK - 24th December 2012, 19:25 GMT

Dear ATCA Open & Philanthropia Friends

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

My good friend Lawrence Bloom and I were having a catch-up call on Christmas Eve to exchange Season's Greetings. He said, "What do DK and friends have to say about 2013 and the shift that is happening?" I said, "As far as we are concerned the only thing one can do is to put one's faith in the Divine Spark to pave the way for all. It is very difficult to come up with appropriate super-computing models and scenarios in regard to what happens next. Fiscal Cliff negotiations in Washington DC are on-the-edge. There is a slow-down in the global economy in general and the European economy in particular. In some ways the last few years have been like the 1930s and perhaps we are coming to the end of that decade."

"May that Almighty hand guide and uphold us all." – King George VI, December 25th, 1939

Lawrence said, "Have you heard of the poem that the King recited during the Second World War because that was all about putting your hand into the hand of God?" I remembered the poem very well. It is often referred to as, "The Gate of The Year!" although the author Minnie Louise Haskins titled it "God Knows" when it was originally published in 1908.

In 1939, the poem "The Gate of The Year!" had first caught the public attention and popular imagination when the then-Princess Elizabeth -- now Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II -- handed a copy to her father, King George VI, and he quoted from it in his Christmas broadcast to the British Empire near the beginning of the Second World War. Here it is:

"God Knows"

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

Queen Mother and The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

The poem was widely acclaimed as inspirational, reaching its first mass global audience in the early days of the Second World War because of the radio broadcast made by King George VI. Its words remained a source of deep comfort to the Queen Mother for the remainder of her life, and she had its words engraved on brass plaques and fixed to the gates of the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle, where the King was interred. The Queen Mother was also buried there in 2002, and the words of "The Gate of the Year" were read out at her state funeral. It is fitting to remember this poem not just in preparation for 2013 but also in celebration of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, which enjoyed extraordinary success with Divine Grace. It was a great pleasure to see Her Majesty during those celebrations especially at the one-thousand-vessels River Pageant in London which last took place three hundred and fifty years ago in 1662, during the reign of King Charles II.

Conclusion

As we think of 2013 and "The Gate of The Year", perhaps we may benefit once again from the poem that Her Majesty handed over to her father 73 years ago, which he quoted from on December 25th, 1939. As King George VI said in the final line of that Christmas message: "May that Almighty hand guide and uphold us all."

[STOPS]

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[ENDS]

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