
Another 24 hour period passes and the world seems to pause to celebrate this particular day more than another simply because it marks the passing of one year (2015) and the beginning of yet one more (2016). Spending multiplied millions (if not billions) on the gaiety of such an event and, with the new risks we face, add to that the billions in added security to protect the revelers who gather around the globe.
Why do we do this every year? We eat special meals, supposedly to influence events in the coming year that will bring us additional money and good fortune all the while laughing off such and telling each other that we are not taking such folk-wisdom seriously. But those meals are served with the same regularity as we light up the night sky with brilliant displays of fireworks each year.
Multiplied millions share resolutions to at least attempt to improve their lives, if not that of some attempt at improving the world around them; such promises for change often forgotten in the passing of days (hours?) that the ‘new’ year brings. We hope, perhaps, that this year can be different; that governments can work together, and that industry as well will work more for the benefit of the world and the people who live on it rather than chasing after the amassing of more and more in the coffers of those same governments and businesses.

We have no means to stop our maddened rush to eventual destruction. A perusal of any news media or just looking within our hearts will demonstrate this truth. Mutual Assured Destruction Doctrine is no guarantee of peace (as I learned in the 70s) and the vehement argument between scholars of different (or the same) religions give me little cause for hope. It is only in one Person that I can look and see hope; a baby born in a slum of a forgotten part of a subjugated people brought that hope to all mankind. A baby foretold for centuries, who was born to die and lived his life in complete obedience to the Law of His people, then executed putting an end, the authorities thought, to this sect of Jews.
So, what’s new with you?