The phrase “begin as we mean to go on” is attributed to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a British Reformed Baptist preacher from the 19th century. Spurgeon was a celebrity in his day, at a time when fame in the church was available in the same way fame was available to poets, perfect sentences vaulting men to crowd-pleasing prominence. Although still well-known in theological studies and religious communities, to the larger world today, Spurgeon’s entire legacy is a scrap of a sentence so perfect as to seem nearly authorless. It happens to also be a perfect tweet, a neat bow of a phrase for making someone look pure, cryptic, and hopeful when posted with no context on December 31st or January 1st. “Begin as you mean to go on” encapsulates the whole obligation of New Years’ Eve and the new year itself, the frenzy of performance that sends people to parties they don’t want attend and convinces unpersuaded strangers to kiss in bars, that sets a night up for perfect failure by forcing a few hours to live up to a whole year.
new years
new years
new years
The phrase “begin as we mean to go on” is attributed to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a British Reformed Baptist preacher from the 19th century. Spurgeon was a celebrity in his day, at a time when fame in the church was available in the same way fame was available to poets, perfect sentences vaulting men to crowd-pleasing prominence. Although still well-known in theological studies and religious communities, to the larger world today, Spurgeon’s entire legacy is a scrap of a sentence so perfect as to seem nearly authorless. It happens to also be a perfect tweet, a neat bow of a phrase for making someone look pure, cryptic, and hopeful when posted with no context on December 31st or January 1st. “Begin as you mean to go on” encapsulates the whole obligation of New Years’ Eve and the new year itself, the frenzy of performance that sends people to parties they don’t want attend and convinces unpersuaded strangers to kiss in bars, that sets a night up for perfect failure by forcing a few hours to live up to a whole year.