“In Gratitude of Old Friends”
by Jon Bloom
This song, loved and sung around the world, is thought to be partially composed by an unknown Scottish bard in days, as its most famous refrain says, “old long since.” Today we would say (ahem), “long, long ago...”
Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns (popularly credited as the song’s author), claimed to have discovered “Auld Lang Syne” in the late 1700’s and transcribed it as an old lowland Scot sang it for him.
What makes “Auld Lang Syne” so powerful? It has nothing to do with a New Year and everything to do with an old friend. It is a tribute toast to treasured time spent roaming rolling Scottish hills and swimming stony Scottish streams with a cherished childhood companion.
The Treasure of Old Friendship
A new year may be a good time for new resolutions, but the ending of an old year is a good time for reflection on what has past. Some reflection is meant simply to treasure with gratitude what we were once given and will never have in the same way again.
Old friendship is that sort of treasure. Few gifts in life are as precious as companions with whom we once spent long summer days and talked long into the night; with whom we shared thrilling adventures and disastrous mishaps; with whom we bent over in convulsive laughter and sat silently in tearful loss; in whom we confided the hopes and fears of our youthful years.
Most often we didn’t choose our best friends as much as we were thrown together with them in “accidents” of Providence. Frequently, they happened to move in next door or up the street or in our tenement or began attending our church or had the locker next to us.
We became friends out of forced proximity, the joy of shared interests, and the deep, unspoken knowledge that it never has been good for man to be alone, which we learned meant far more than romantic love (2 Samuel 1:26; John 15:14–15). We sometimes fought and injured each other with wounds only intimates can inflict. But we carried each other’s hearts and had each other’s backs when others attacked.
Let Auld Acquaintance Not Be Forgot
Our old acquaintances, particularly those who helped us see and love what is true and pure and beautiful and excellent (Philippians 4:8), should not be forgotten. They should be recalled and reverenced. They left an indelible imprint on our souls and they still shape who we are. They were good, gracious gifts from God himself (James 1:17), to whom it is fitting to give heartfelt, profound thanks. The beginning of a new life chapter is a good time to remember precious characters of chapters past.
PRAYER #40 - CUP OF THANKFULNESS
Perhaps it is time, before it’s too late, to schedule that lunch with or make that phone call or write that email or old-fashioned handwritten letter to a cherished friend simply to express again or at last what they have meant to you — still mean to you. Or if they are beyond contact now, it would be fitting to honor their significance to someone who can share with you the sweet melancholic memory of invaluable moments that you once knew.
As you toast the arrival of 2016, take a prayerful cup of thankfulness for the kindness God showed to you in days old long since.
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