Dear Reader:

Ever since Ginger Wilder sent me a birthday greeting wishing me a happy ‘trip around the sun’…I have fallen in love with that expression and idea. It is also the perfect greeting for a new year…in a sense…symbolically representing everyone’s new birthday orbit living on earth…starting January 1.

If we go into this new year of 2021 with a sense of new adventure and possibilities, rather than dread or fear of prolonged crises from 2020 following us, we stand a much better chance of overcoming our self-induced trepidations.

Certainly, we have all learned new terms we wish we had never heard ..like the 2020 Word of the Year…Pandemic. We have met challenges like no other we have had to confront in our lifetimes and witnessed the term “normalcy” transform into two words …the “new normalcy.”

Still…like every other unexpected crisis that has befallen us in our personal, as well as, public lives…on the whole mankind has adjusted its daily life to protect those around us… those we love… and strangers we respect… as fellow human beings living at the same time as ourselves on this blue planet.

Most of us buckled up a little tighter for the bumpy ride ahead and worked consciously to mentor little eyes watching us to see how adults handle tough times. The most important lessons learned this year encompass the ancient values of old…courage, faith, humor, trust, belief, and love…while helping each other along life’s journey. 

This concept never stops until we do.

We have had so many reporters and researchers trying to compare and distinguish 2020’s pandemic from the 1918 Spanish flu that killed so many. The sad part about the 1918  Spanish flu was that it arrived the same year WWI ended.

So along with the joy of the troops returning came this terrible flu that wiped out thousands, millions around the world too. For many families their sons, fathers, uncles, etc. returned home weakened from the war only to succumb to the flu.

So as bad as it had been for us…especially our country…at least we didn’t have a World War ending at the same time. Every tragedy that confronts our blue planet, home to all of us, is tragic in of itself…not to be compared to other tragedies.

We have some things to be thankful for like modern medicines that others before didn’t…and an economy that wasn’t war-torn before like 1918. We each have to deal with the hand we are given…in our personal lives and man’s time-line lives in history.

But we can rest assured that we are not alone…no matter when tragedy hits.

As we all start our new journey into the unknown 2021…we must remind ourselves that all we have… is all we need. We should remember we are never alone…Divine Love is at the helm and will never desert us.

And yes we are allowed to ask for help and guidance, for our personal switch to be turned on in order to soar. We can ask for rest during difficult times but we also must remember to surrender our personal expectations sometimes and simply ask to be surprised by joy!

Are you ready? Buckle up, and yes please keep on your masks…the pandemic isn’t over until we do. Love our home planet enough to banish the “enemy” virus from our daily lives by doing what it takes to destroy it  as one powerful team of humans binding together. We can do this! It will be our greatest victory for the generations to come…our legacy to those who are yet to arrive.

So until tomorrow…

If we are successful in this new 2021 journey…something very important will have changed. We will no longer see things as they are…we will see things as we are. Powerful explorers of the Divine Spirit.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* A request for prayers please….Susan’s sister, Wanda, was exposed and came down with Covid  a couple of weeks ago…at first not too badly…but unfortunately as time has progressed her COVID symptoms have too.

Wanda  lost her husband recently and lives alone….her son and daughter-in-law, along with lots of friends, are dropping off food and so on but her medical status has slowly deteriorated. Monday night, after a 10 hour wait in the ER, she was finally admitted with pneumonia.

She is confused now and we can all imagine how terrifying this experience is. Susan and family…plus all the rest of us would truly appreciate prayers for Wanda as she valiantly fights this challenging virus. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

The weather is back in the sixties with plenty of sun. It is one of those day we feel lucky to be alive. I notice walking around that the Christmas decorations aren’t coming down as fast as they have in the past…it seems like more people want to extend the joy of Christmas and what it means…just a little longer.

I hate to brag but Summerville is as about as beautiful as it gets…especially now that our town center park, Hutchinson Square. is open for daily Christmas entertainment amid the lights of the holidays.

And…pranksters even provided a snowy holiday scene for Summervillians too…putting some kind of detergent or soap in the town park fountain….the kids and even adults alike loved it. Tis the season to be “merry.”