River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1918-12-26
At TURN OF ROAD.
Beginning of New Year Good
Time for RetroSpeCti0n.
inspiration for All of Us in ReaIiza-
ton That Things (which Worried
and Saddened Were Only
Trifles.
BY VIM. GEORGE JORDAN.

TNHE beginning of the new year is
a natural, sharp turn in the road
of time. Here we may wisely
rest a while, and in the peace and
quiet and calm of self-cOmmunion see
the long stretch of the road Of a sin
gle tWeIvemonth. It is built imperish-
ably Of short steps Of Iiying-from mo-
ment to moment.
Many of the purposes for which we
labored and struggled, in our narrow,
close, selfish absorption, seem poor,
petty and puny when seen from the
turn of the road. The structure Of
some effort we thought marble now
is shown in it's sickening sham as a
hasty affair of show and pretense,
made of staff, that could not stand the
wear and tear and test of time It was
not built on square lines Of character,
of the best that was in us. It lacked
strength, sincerity, simplicity. The ma
terial was made up of policy and sell
fshness put together on hurried plans.
1t was failure; it cannot be rebuilt;
but it is worth only a passing regret
and a realization Of the lesson Of it's
nonsuccess-at the turn of the road.
The look backward from the turn of
the road should inspire US by making
vivid to us how much Of what we fear
ed never came to pass. The tyranny
of worry, that dominated us and held
US for months trembling slaves to a
weak fear, that dissipated our energy,
d11lIn hinII nd HoY
mental vision, at the very hours that
should have given us fullest control
Of our best, is now seen as an enemy
to truce individual growth. 1t means
a harder fight in the amending battle
against worry and grief.
The broader view of life reveals that
the only great things in life are trifles
that what panied us most, saddened
our hearts, and turned our hopes to
ashes were only trifles-cumulating in
to overwhelming Importance. A cruel
word, an unkindness, little misun-
derstanding may darken q day and sep
arate us from one we love or may pet
rify us into a mood of doubt and de-
spair. The most joyous moments of
life, the high lights in the pictures of
memory, may too be only trifles of
kindness, fine expressions of love, sim
pie tributes of confidence and trust
that make the very heart smile-as we
remember.
Nature is constantly giving us new
turns of the road. 1t may be birth
day or some general anniversary in the
cycle of the year. It may be some red
letter day in the private calendar of
our emotions or some date eloquent to
us as telling of some joyous first" or
some pathetic "last" time in the sacred
diary Of the heart. 1t may be a supreme
sorrow, an agonizing sense of loss, the
coming of a great joy, the closing of
some epoch in our lives, the proving of
the actuality of something too awful
for us even to have feared, some exult-
ant half-hour that changes irrevocably
all our living. These and numberless
other days, hours or single moments
may bring us alone tO-the turn of the
road.
Then may come one of those rare
moments of life, of fine spiritual dis
Cernment, of luminous revelation, of
coming to ones highest self, when the
sOrdid, the mean, the temporary, the
selfish are stripped in an instant of
their garish shamS and tinsel. Then
the real, the true, the eternal stand out
in their majesty, bathed in the splendor
and glow of the revealing of truth. In
such a spirit the very Jingle of the in
spiration of the infinite fills us. We
seem born again to new, better and
greater things, for we have seen the
divine vision-at the turn of the road.