Fireworks
01/01/24 00:45
I guess that fireworks have been associated with the celebration of the New Year since fireworks have existed. However, if what I know about the history of fireworks is accurate, the first fireworks were invented in China when potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal were combined to produce the first “gunpowder” which was poured into hollowed out bamboo sticks to form the first human-made fireworks. So if the use of fireworks to celebrate the New Year were to give a nod to historical accuracy, perhaps they should be exploded in celebration of Chinese New Year. Over a billion people in China and millions around the world will celebrate the Lunar New Year on the weekend of February 10. The bottom line is that not every calendar starts on the same day of the year.
In the Christian church, the new year begins with the first Sunday of Advent, anticipation being an important part of the discipline of our faith. Our secular calendar, however, starts with January 1 each year. The cycle of 365 days per year is based on observations of the amount of time it takes the planet earth to complete a single revolution around the Sun. Of course it doesn’t line up exactly, so next year will have 366 years to keep the calendar roughly synchronized with the earth’s journey through space. And, as I’ve previously noted, the Chinese lunisolar calendar begins each new year on the date of a new moon.
I don’t remember fireworks as part of the festivities of New Year’s celebrations in my hometown during my years of growing up there. Below zero temperatures tend to limit outdoor activities and the occasion for fireworks in our town was the celebration of the Fourth of July. But New Years fireworks are a big deal in our neighborhood. I noticed a few of them just as dusk fell as I drove home from our son’s farm yesterday. Loud blasts and big bursts started in earnest between 9 and ten pm and things really got loud and bright around midnight. Our village has a tradition of a ring of fire celebration for New Years. People gather all around the bay and light fires and flares which reflect in the water and make a cheerful exhibit. Fireworks are added to the celebration by many, their bursts also reflecting from the water of the bay. And some of the folks around here have access to some pretty professional grade fireworks. They set up mortars on the beach to blast their pyrotechnics high into the night sky.
I’m not much on New Years celebrations. I’m not much for that kind of a party. I never was much of a drinker and since I experienced heart arrhythmia and learned that alcohol can be a trigger for atrial fibrillation, I decided to forgo alcohol. Parties where people drank excessively never were a place that I enjoyed. I’m no evangelist about alcohol consumption. There are a lot of people who drink responsibly and who host events where alcohol is served that put no pressure on those who choose not to drink. Unlike my teetotaling forebears, I don’t think that everyone needs to avoid it. One thing that we learned from prohibition is that society’s ills were not solved by a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol.
Our preferred way to recognize New Years is to greet our friends and neighbors with best wishes, to have a family dinner where we all state some of things for which we are grateful, and to enjoy our time together. Our plans don’t involve staying up until the clock strikes 12 and I joke about my practice of observing New Years at the stroke of midnight in Eastern Standard time, which is 9 pm here.
However, the fireworks in our neighborhood pretty much precluded being asleep at midnight unless one is used to sleeping in a war zone. I’ve never really been in a war zone, so it probably doesn’t sound at all like fireworks being blasted over the bay and the sound echoing through the neighborhood, but it is how I imagine it might sound.
I confess that I have some anxiety about the year to come. I have had my opinions, but I didn’t used to feel anxious about US presidential elections, but the election in 2000 that was determined by the Supreme Court weighing into a dispute over the recounting of ballots made it seem like the popular vote was somehow less important than I used to believe. Then another candidate who did not win the popular vote but did win the electoral college became president in 2016 with clearly-stated ambitions to imitate some of the world’s most notorious dictators. On January 6, 2021 that same candidate, after having lost the popular vote again attempted to disrupt the constitutionally mandated process of peaceful transfer of power, loyalists to that president stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the election and subvert the process of free and fair elections. That insurrection nearly toppled constitutional government in our country.
That candidate is back for this year’s race and according to the polls, stands a good chance of once again being re-elected. The fascist rhetoric has been turned up a great deal so far with the candidate quoting Hitler in stump speeches and not shying away from the use of the term dictator.
And politics aren’t the only reason for anxiety over the year to come. The disparity of the distribution of resources that results in a small number of ultra rich people and a huge number of poor people has resulted in a housing crisis with many hard-working individuals left without homes with no way to afford simple, decent housing. Childhood poverty is on the rise around the world and in our country.
The over consumption of the earth’s resources, pollution of the water and air, and human-caused global warming have reached crisis proportions and it is possible that humans may cause the extinction of our own species as well as many others.
Of course those issues are closely tied to politics as well.
My New Year’s prayer for this world is that we all might seek “the peace that passes all understanding.” May peace come to the children of warfare and violence. May peace come to threatened and endangered species. May peace come to neighbors who disagree about politics.
Fireworks are optional. In fact at my age I prefer a year with fewer fireworks.
In the Christian church, the new year begins with the first Sunday of Advent, anticipation being an important part of the discipline of our faith. Our secular calendar, however, starts with January 1 each year. The cycle of 365 days per year is based on observations of the amount of time it takes the planet earth to complete a single revolution around the Sun. Of course it doesn’t line up exactly, so next year will have 366 years to keep the calendar roughly synchronized with the earth’s journey through space. And, as I’ve previously noted, the Chinese lunisolar calendar begins each new year on the date of a new moon.
I don’t remember fireworks as part of the festivities of New Year’s celebrations in my hometown during my years of growing up there. Below zero temperatures tend to limit outdoor activities and the occasion for fireworks in our town was the celebration of the Fourth of July. But New Years fireworks are a big deal in our neighborhood. I noticed a few of them just as dusk fell as I drove home from our son’s farm yesterday. Loud blasts and big bursts started in earnest between 9 and ten pm and things really got loud and bright around midnight. Our village has a tradition of a ring of fire celebration for New Years. People gather all around the bay and light fires and flares which reflect in the water and make a cheerful exhibit. Fireworks are added to the celebration by many, their bursts also reflecting from the water of the bay. And some of the folks around here have access to some pretty professional grade fireworks. They set up mortars on the beach to blast their pyrotechnics high into the night sky.
I’m not much on New Years celebrations. I’m not much for that kind of a party. I never was much of a drinker and since I experienced heart arrhythmia and learned that alcohol can be a trigger for atrial fibrillation, I decided to forgo alcohol. Parties where people drank excessively never were a place that I enjoyed. I’m no evangelist about alcohol consumption. There are a lot of people who drink responsibly and who host events where alcohol is served that put no pressure on those who choose not to drink. Unlike my teetotaling forebears, I don’t think that everyone needs to avoid it. One thing that we learned from prohibition is that society’s ills were not solved by a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol.
Our preferred way to recognize New Years is to greet our friends and neighbors with best wishes, to have a family dinner where we all state some of things for which we are grateful, and to enjoy our time together. Our plans don’t involve staying up until the clock strikes 12 and I joke about my practice of observing New Years at the stroke of midnight in Eastern Standard time, which is 9 pm here.
However, the fireworks in our neighborhood pretty much precluded being asleep at midnight unless one is used to sleeping in a war zone. I’ve never really been in a war zone, so it probably doesn’t sound at all like fireworks being blasted over the bay and the sound echoing through the neighborhood, but it is how I imagine it might sound.
I confess that I have some anxiety about the year to come. I have had my opinions, but I didn’t used to feel anxious about US presidential elections, but the election in 2000 that was determined by the Supreme Court weighing into a dispute over the recounting of ballots made it seem like the popular vote was somehow less important than I used to believe. Then another candidate who did not win the popular vote but did win the electoral college became president in 2016 with clearly-stated ambitions to imitate some of the world’s most notorious dictators. On January 6, 2021 that same candidate, after having lost the popular vote again attempted to disrupt the constitutionally mandated process of peaceful transfer of power, loyalists to that president stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the election and subvert the process of free and fair elections. That insurrection nearly toppled constitutional government in our country.
That candidate is back for this year’s race and according to the polls, stands a good chance of once again being re-elected. The fascist rhetoric has been turned up a great deal so far with the candidate quoting Hitler in stump speeches and not shying away from the use of the term dictator.
And politics aren’t the only reason for anxiety over the year to come. The disparity of the distribution of resources that results in a small number of ultra rich people and a huge number of poor people has resulted in a housing crisis with many hard-working individuals left without homes with no way to afford simple, decent housing. Childhood poverty is on the rise around the world and in our country.
The over consumption of the earth’s resources, pollution of the water and air, and human-caused global warming have reached crisis proportions and it is possible that humans may cause the extinction of our own species as well as many others.
Of course those issues are closely tied to politics as well.
My New Year’s prayer for this world is that we all might seek “the peace that passes all understanding.” May peace come to the children of warfare and violence. May peace come to threatened and endangered species. May peace come to neighbors who disagree about politics.
Fireworks are optional. In fact at my age I prefer a year with fewer fireworks.
