WhaleTale News – The Gate of the Year
Dear Friends, this is the time we receive messages of goodwill and contemplations of what was and what is still to come. Sometimes a message will grab my attention (thank you Phil), and this is the result.
In 1932, Kind George V started a tradition, addressing the British nation with a Christmas message broadcast. In 1939 with WWII in full swing, the British defence force battered by the loss of great warships, King George the VI (the stuttering king) addressed the nation with a Christmas message. George’s wife Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, handed him a poem that deeply touched her. George felt that the poem’s message would illuminate the spiritual comfort he believed his subjects needed as the Axis powers confronted the Allies in the early days of World War II.
God Knows, (The Gate of the Year)
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. (rest of the poem below)
The message struck a chord with a country facing the uncertainty of war, and during this time, the Christmas broadcast became embedded as an annual tradition in British hearts and minds. Nobody knew who wrote the poem, and at midnight Boxing Day the BBC announced that the author was Minnie Louise Haskins, who wrote the poem in 1908. The author was a remarkable woman. ‘God Knows’ was also read at the funeral of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in 2002.
Do you remember the British historical drama film, The King’s Speech, based on the above events?
We are all standing at the Gate of the Year 2022 today. I trust that your hand will also be in the Hand of God so that we can safely and gladly tread into the unknown with peace and faith.
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.
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