Every year, midnight on New Year’s Eve never happens for thousands of people. It can be unsettling.
Midnight never happened for my wife and I in the year 2000. In the last hour of the year, we were driving east. It was 11:30 p.m. or so on December 31, New Year’s Eve, and we were about to cross over the state line from Tennessee into Virginia. We had forgotten we were crossing a time zone. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it was half an hour after midnight. Suddenly it was 12:30 a.m., a new day, a new year! Midnight never happened! The new year was already half an hour old. It felt a bit like entering The Twilight Zone, even though all we had done was change time zones.
Let me make a prediction for this year. I can safely say that moments of confusion, consternation, and bewilderment will assail us. That is an easy prediction! My hope for the new year is that you and I will have a more steady trust in God and in those around us, especially those around us, especially in unsettling moments of confusion and doubt. I pray that we will look for the good even when we are bewildered and, in seeking good, find it, even in such unlikely places as our neighbors’ faces.
PHOTO PRAYER 2026-01
To see the whole essay, click here.
Photo copyright 2007; text 2026 by Danny Nelson Schweers.
To make a comment, click here.
Subscribe to these as they are created. Click here to learn more.
COMMENTS
Linda H. wrote:
Bless you for this beautiful photo prayer, Danny! Happy, healthy Now Yes to you and your wife. Oops! Meant to say “New Year” — the gremlins got into my keyboard.
Tina B. wrote:
Beautifully expressed, Danny. Your eye for noticing the objects around us and capturing them through your creatively inspired and unique vision is special. Thank you for sharing your words and images. Happy New Year to you and Barbara!
Jeannie F. wrote:
I am always glad to see a photo and message from you. You have a wonderful perspective and a real gift, a fluency in expressing ideas and experiences that sound so familiar to me. Good to meet up with you and travel along the unfolding road of life this way. Thank you for using your gifts this generous way.
Ellen D. wrote:
This was a great one!
John McK. wrote:
Thank you for your comments and support, Danny. I hope we all have a blessed and comforting New Year.
Audrey C. wrote:
Danny and Barbara
Saundra J. wrote:
Amen and thank you!
Mike C. wrote:
Happy New Year Danny and Barbara!
Nina M. wrote:
The new year is a blank slate. May our better angels prevail and may we stay healthy and happy.
Elaine H. wrote:
Great twilight zone experience, memory, story!
Craig S. wrote:
Very thoughtful, Danny. Thanks! You always present a perspective which, while I no longer entertain it, at one point in my life seemed the most rational way to go. You may remember a physics professor at UCSD who unnerved students by repeating that such and such things were “intuitively obvious”. When they passed out that kind of intuition, I must have been at the back of the line! Seldom do I run into something that is intuitively obvious. It seems that our perceptions are based on a belief system. So if you didn’t believe in the western system of timekeeping, you would never have known what you were missing…