GATHERED TOGETHER
In the ninth grade, we learned how to write a business letter. We were taught to always begin with “Dear Sir.”
Dear? If I wanted to write to the Acme Squidget Company to complain that their most expensive Model A Squidget utterly failed when I tried to attach it to my Whatchamacallit, I was supposed to address the scoundrel who headed this dubious business as “Dear”?
It turns out that we owe this very strange usage of “dear” to the Middle Ages when the word meant “highly esteemed” rather than our modern meaning of “beloved.” It was the formal way a knight would address his lord in written correspondence.
And so, for the next 800 years, commercial correspondence opened with this peculiar and formal salutation. Only with the popularity of email during the last thirty years has the practice disappeared. Now the previously standard “Dear Sir” salutation is often replaced by simply writing the nature of the inquiry in the Subject line.
I think we’re all happy that “dear” has lost its rather stuffy, formal definition of “esteemed” or “valued” and is now synonymous with the very warm and tender “beloved” or “precious.” You would think we would not need yet another phrase to address those whom we regard as even more dear than merely “dear.” I was surprised a few years ago to hear that very phrase at two very different events.
The first was the wedding of a former student. The minister opened the ceremony by addressing us celebrants as “Dearly Beloved”. The second was a funeral at my synagogue when the rabbi addressed us mourners with the same phrase. It was then that I pondered why there was a need to ramp up the already highly charged “dear” with the almost redundant “dearly beloved.”
The reason is in the unexpected similarity between weddings and funerals. What they have in common is the emotional intensity of the joy of the first group and the grief of the second. The bride and groom and their families, and similarly the family of the deceased, prefer the presence of those they love the deepest to join them for an intensely heartwarming wedding or heartbreaking funeral. They don’t ache to see those they merely hold dear as much as they crave to surround themselves with those they consider to be their dearly beloveds.
Which brings me to the fact that my little essay is hitting your Inboxes less than forty-eight hours from New Year’s Eve (not to mention the surprising number of readers I now have in New Zealand, where you are receiving this a day later, on December 30. Yes, I just had to work in that free brag as to the international scope of my reading audience!). In any case, I wanted to emphasize this phrase “dearly beloved” in my farewell to 2025.
The most common symbols of the New Years holiday are fireworks, champagne toasts, confetti, and midnight kisses. But the most universal symbols are Father Time (with his scythe) and Baby New Year (with its sash proclaiming the new date). I think that both the old man and the newborn relate to the concept of Dearly Beloved.
What is more dear in this world than a baby? Its parents and immediate family think it the most precious being ever to grace this earth, and even those of us who might just meet a baby in passing find it utterly adorable.
But a baby isn’t a Dearly Beloved. A “beloved” implies one who is adored for who he or she is. As dear as babies are, they haven’t developed the personality traits to make them much beloved outside their family. And if the new year’s baby isn’t beloved, Father Time, with his ominous scythe, seems the scary opposite.
But it is in the juxtaposition of these two classic characters when we see them as Dearly Beloveds. We all know that a baby, after journeying through life, becomes an old man, ready to pass the torch before passing away. Beyond the fireworks and confetti, Father Time and Baby New Year together represent the poignant beauty of this holiday: its reminder of time’s rapid passing toward our final worldly destination. As you know, “Dearly Beloved…” is an opening phrase usually followed by “…we are gathered together.” Ultimately, we are all gathered together when life ends.
We mortal creatures have the capacity to become Dearly Beloveds to others, if only we can learn how to love utterly enough that our devotion is joyously returned to us in equal measure. We hold life dear mainly because we know it must end. But when we are in the presence of those precious souls whom we consider our Dearly Beloveds, we feel such an overwhelming sacred passion towards them that somehow we are convinced it will be endless.
Email Elliot at huffam@me.com or click here