I have a little idea (but very little) what the title of this column means. I should; after all, I chose it.
If my facts are right, and my source is something other than Wicked-pedia, it was someone called Burns from Scotland, who wrote it in the mid-1700's.
It's something we say to each other when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, if we're still awake at this point. I'd even recognize the tune if you hummed it to me as I write this.
However, I'm listening to Celtic Woman right now, so please don't bother me.
I will spend the next few hundred words trying to decipher, interpret, and apply those three words for you. I'm going to do it by looking back into 2014. As they say, you will not know where you're going unless you know where you've come from.
Here goes an Alberta translation of a Scottish title:
Auld. Looks and sound like it's one of those puffin-type birds that live on the rugged coast of some man-forsaken Atlantic Ocean island. No, that would be “auk”--and this would be an “auk-word” moment for me.
It is, in fact, a corruption of the word “old,” as in auld (old) man, auld (old) socks, or auld (old) news. Yes, something old is about to be replaced with something new: An old year has almost slinked away, and we are facing a new one. Here's hoping 2015 will be a better year for you here and you over there—and everyone of you all over the world. Surely, it can't be any worse than 2014.
Well, actually, sorry to say, it can.
Lang. If the writer meant “land,” the least he could do was spell it right. Maybe he was doing headstands when he wrote it and got his letters upside down. It looks like it could be a corruption of “long,” as in the “old long year that just passed,” and the “a” should have been an “o.” “Long” it is.
If that's the case, then the next word that should should be something like “year” or “time,” as in “past long year” or “old last year” or something brilliantly Canadian like that.
But Syne? Seriously, that doesn't look like “year” or “past” to me. It looks like it could be “sin” or maybe even “sing.” “Sing about the past year?” That's a stretch, but you know how these Scots spell. After all, any guy who wears a skirt and eats sheep guts is, well--maybe we'll leave it right there.
It is actually related to “since,” and they're just missing a “c.” After all, we've already had an “a” that should be an “o” (twice). So our phrase could come to be a very clumsy translation of “old long since,” or “that which is past.” Today, we might say idiomatically, “long, long ago”-- like a fairy tale.
But, friends, 2014 was no fairy tale.
There are too many stories to draw from as we look back. Here are a couple: We learned of the horror of the initials “ISIS” that we never knew before. And had you ever heard of Ferguson, Missouri, before you turned purple with rage when a black kid named Brown was shot by a white cop? Didn't think so.
If you're like me, you'd like to hit the rewind button on your DVD called, “2014: The Year That Was,” and start all over. While you wouldn't want to whitewash the news (we'll leave that up to the social and network media types), I personally would like to hear last year's news from a different angle.
But we can't do that; that is, we can't change the past (events or reporting). But what we can do is bring in a new year, with a fresh perspective, fresh resolve, and fresh integrity. And the news starts with you and yours, and works out from there.
You see, there's not a lot you can do about Muslims killing Muslims and blacks killing blacks—which, by the way, goes unreported and unresolved on a daily basis. No place for smugness here, of course. Death and mayhem are still death and mayhem, no matter what the religion or skin colour is.
So 2014, as some toddler might say, was a “yucky” year. While I can't be responsible for what happens in the Iraq-Syria-Turkey Triangle or in Ferguson, Missouri, for that matter, I can be responsible what happens in my little world. And if a enough of us are serious about change, who knows where our efforts could lead to?
I resolve, therefore, to neither rob, vandalize, or kill, nor turn my gracious faith into brutal beliefs.
Now, let me turn “Celtic Woman” down, and with one accord, let us all sing “Awed Lined Song”...”Old Lake Swan”...”Odd Leaning Swing”...
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