Thoughts
for a New Year
“The
new year stands before us like a chapter in a book waiting to be written.”
Melody
Beattie
We are on the threshold of a new year. The old year, 2020,
will soon be in our rearview mirror, praise God. We have not begun to calculate
the real damage it has wrought, because it is like a slow-moving tsunami. We
will know by this time next year, when hopefully, the worst of the corona virus
pandemic is over. What a devastating year it has been!
Still, here we are, ready to usher in a new year and a new decade.
I am always stunned by how fast time flies these days. Just yesterday, it
seems, I was pulling expired cans of potted meat out of my mother’s Y2K emergency
cabinet in her basement. Now we are entering the third decade of the 21st
century on even shakier ground that we were then. But I have hope—hope for a
better year, and a prosperous decade.
Naïve, you say? Yes, but also realistic. Nothing lasts
forever, and humans respond to tragedy better than they respond to success. We
rise to the occasion; we get up and innovate. We discover what we need to do,
and we do it without whining. Just last week, one of my sons talked about learning
some new “life skills.” By that he means becoming more self-sufficient, more
capable of tackling a broad spectrum of necessary skills. Remember when you
could change the tires on your car, and check to see if the oil needed
replacing. Or, when we grew and preserved most of our food, so, come February,
we still had soup stock? Remember when we cooked and ate all our meals at home?
I read yesterday that millennials are interested in doing such
things; it is a throwback to the “live off the land” movement of the hip
generation. Life moves in cycles. Now, into the light and easy times; then,
back into the dark and difficult times. We progress through each of them, doing
what is necessary to do in that cycle. Because to fight against the flow of life
and refuse to change with it is contrary to survival. And more than anything,
we want to survive.
So, I have hope that 2021 will move us closer to the light.
We now have a clear view of the tasks ahead regarding social problems such as
race, poverty, inequality, and affordable housing. We know that climate change
must be a top priority. We have discovered that our new frontier is cyber in
location. The pandemic has highlighted our weaknesses in supply chain,
healthcare, and our readiness to respond quickly and efficiently to crises. We
need to train many more nurses and other essential workers—and for the first
time, pay them what they are worth.
We have the check list before us. We still have unanswered
questions, but they will have to wait their turn. Now is the time to put all
our innovative chops on the table and dive boldly into a new decade knowing
that we can do this. We have the heart and the soul and the ability. Success is
not up to our government alone. We-the-people are also accountable. On the
first day of 2021, we will be ready to pull up our big-girl britches and get
moving. I am confident we can do it.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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