By Pago Habitans*
The new year had barely begun when I spotted a familiar figure on a bench by the river. It was, of course, Brother Ben, who never seems fazed by winter weather. With a friendly wave he motioned for me to sit down.
“I’m glad to have this opportunity to wish you every blessing in the new year,” he declared, and then thought to add, “and not just this year, but for now and evermore.” I returned his poetical benediction and we settled into a companionable silence. After a while I asked him how he had brought in the new year.
“I did what I do every year: I met up with friends for a vigil and a bit of feasting as the chimes strike midnight.”
Ben has a wide circle of friends from across many dimensions of reality, so I wondered who his New Year’s Eve mates might be. He read my mind.
“Ours is an amorphous gathering on New Year’s Eve: vagabonds, restless souls, refugees, and waifs of all ages.”
“Would I recognize your New Year friends?”
“You might, if you looked hard enough. They’re the kind of people many people don’t really see, or maybe they see but ignore. A few call the Village home. Others have more tangential associations with the neighborhood, while quite a few are on journeys across time and space and just happen to be stopping by for the holidays.”
“And where does this take place?” I asked.
“It’s difficult to say exactly where, but every year we assemble in a vacant space somewhere in the Village: an abandoned site or maybe a building that’s being built but not yet occupied. There’s something especially forlorn about an empty structure with no signs of life as a new year begins. We attempt to fill that void.”
“How do you do that?”
Ben smiled. “We reminisce, consider the year past, and pray for a better year ahead. Then we feast, pretty much what many people do.”
I wondered about the logistics of feasting in a space without gas or electricity.
“I am speaking metaphorically, Pago. Ours is more a feasting of the soul, although I know certain sympathetic bartenders and warm-hearted chefs who might contribute to a feast if required.”
“What do you do after you’ve ‘feasted’?”
“Oh, we wander down to the river and contemplate the flow of time, the rhythm of the seasons, and the remarkable endurance of Creation against all human degradation. And then we wish each other Godspeed, or whatever expression of peace and love comes to our lips. One by one we go our way.”
“And what way do you take?”
“I stroll the streets of the Village looking after revelers as they navigate their ways home. Few have been restrained in their consumption of spirits, so they are vulnerable to accidents and altercations.”
“Could you really stop an accident from happening or keep an argument from becoming violent?”
Ben thought for a moment, then said, “It’s possible.”
My jaw went a bit slack as I thought of Brother Ben getting into a brawl or coming between a pedestrian and a speeding vehicle. Again, Ben read my mind.
“Dear Pago, you’d be surprised what a concentration of consciousness and compassion can sometimes accomplish.” And with that we resumed a companionable silence.
* “Village Resident” otherwise known as T. P. Miller
