Beginnings are wonderful. They help you to ease the pain of failure and mediocrity and provide you with a fresh start.

Beginnings imply hope – hope of graduation, promotion, relocation, new life and improvement.

But beginnings could also mean apprehension, frustration, doubt, bitterness and despair, especially the kinds of beginnings which are man-made, like the beginning of another calendar year.

What will this New Year hold for you and for me?

For those of you who are young, healthy, climbing the social and corporal ladder and spiritual vibrant, the New Year may very well signify hope; hope for more degrees, more pay, more responsibilities and more fulfillment.

But what will it hold for those who have passed the zenith of their careers – those who are living with incurable illness or living with loved ones who have such ailments; those who are unemployed; those to whom another year simply means more of the same drudgery, pain and hopelessness? Not to mention the countless millions who are living in regions where starvation of food and/or freedom are constant companions.

What do you say to a world which is composed of the “haves” (the young, the healthy and the rich) and the “have-nots”. The “haves” look in the future with all its possibilities and ask, “why not?” whereas the “have-nots” look at the present and the dim prospect of the future and ask, “why?”

I think I can respond to the “why not” of the “haves” easier than I can to the other group. My gut level response to the “why not” is “so what?” So what if you can gain the whole world and all that is in it? The world will one day pass away. So, “so what?”

To the “why” of the “have-nots”, I think I can only answer with a sympathetic silence and with tears in my eyes. I have some idea as to what may have contributed to the problem, but I have very little practical solution to the answer.

Our Lord looked at Jerusalem and wept. When He was confronted with the sin of humanity and the all-too-ready judgment of the self-righteous (John 8), Jesus remained silent.

Do you have words to say? Then confront the “haves”.

Do you have tears to shed? Then do so in front of the “have-nots”.

And God bless you for so doing.