Janus and Other Gods of the New Year
I wonder what you think about when you think about a New Year; all sorts of traditions and customs are associated with the beginning of another year.
For some it’s just the beginning of another commercial season – I was standing in a local supermarket on the 1st January and while I was paying for my tomatoes, noticed boxes of Creme Eggs piled high at the till – apparently it was Easter already.
For others the New Year is the very opposite of a chocolate celebration – it’s all about the promise of better fitness and better health.
For the ancient Romans the New Year was about making promises to lead a better life – promises they made to Janus, the God after whom we get the name January. To be perfectly honest, however, making resolutions at the beginning of another year is not really my thing – and that’s partly because I know I’m not very good at keeping them…
…and yet the whole idea of making resolutions indicates that people are very often looking forward to something new.
And then I noticed what some of this year’s new things might be:
Mindfulness and Meditation – the non-religious religion for a secular age. More on mindfulness and meditation here (let’s just ignore that it’s Buddhism).
Family – Tucked away in one of the latter paragraphs of this report is a little bit about parenthood.
And more about three-parent-babies here, and here.
Support for Assisted Dying – Life, Death and Evangelical Clerical Collars in the United Kingdom. And, from the Government of the Netherlands, information about their policy on Euthanasia, assisted suicide and non-resuscitation here.
And perhaps this year in Northern Ireland the ending of a human life will become a human right. The consultation document, “A Consultation on Amending the Law by the Department of Justice” (N.I.), is available here.”