As we kick off the new year, I remember listening to a holiday album, and there I was surprised by a wonderful duet by Mary J. Blige and Barbara Streisand, singing "When you Wish Upon A Star." That song destined for magic from its composition. Leigh Harline and Ned Washington wrote it in autumn of 1938 for the story crew of the fledling Disney to-be-classic Pinocchio. When they played it for the staff, it was immediately embarased as the theme song for the cartoon feature length movie. The actor whose voice was cast as Jiminy Cricket, Cliff Edwards, recorded the song, and it elevated Jiminy's role in the move from a minor one to that of the narrator, and the song was elevated to the movie theme playing over the opening credits. Subsequently, it became the familiar theme of all things Disney.
And I thought to myself, what better a song do we need for 2022?
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No requested is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true
As we step out of 2021 into a new year, so many still feel the weight of the continuing pandemic, the heaviness of the clothing of griefs of many kinds, the struggle to find our footing amidst the cycles of changes to what had been "normal" to us. There is a tiredness which lingers in this "old year" which we'd like to shed in the "new."
So is it too simplistic to call us to dream again? To make a wish and believe? To trust that, contrary to what we've been experiencing, that "fate is kind, and she brings to those who love the sweet fulfillment of their secret longing>"
On New Year's Eve, I stood outside and looked up, made a wish that all of our dreams come true.
Peace and joy, good health and happiness, and a restoration of the child in all of our hearts is my wish for all of you, in the New Year, 2022.
