December 18, 2008

To Hawthorn Friends and Family --

As this epic year draws to an end, it is tempting to fall back on some lines from Charles Dickens -- not the happy ending from A Christmas Carol, “God Bless us each and every one!” (tho’ we wish that, too, of course) -- but, rather, his lines from A Tale of Two Cities, noting that “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness . . . ”

Penned in 1859, those lines from a story opening in 1775, could have been written just as well about the year just ending!

This year saw a spirited campaign bring to the presidency the first African-American in our nation’s history, a history marred far too long by the scourge of slavery and our failure to effectively right racism’s wrongs. This year’s campaign saw, too, the first woman to come within the narrowest of margins of winning nomination – and likely election – to the White House, a ceiling still to be shattered. The year also numbered among serious candidates a Mormon, a Hispanic and a former Baptist preacher. Now we see an administration building a broad-based, centrist team – not unlike Lincoln’s “team of rivals” – to try to lead America.

But if those were, for many of us, signs of “the best of times” in 2008, for all of us there were signs, too, of “the worst of times” . . . from continuing wars. . . to growing terrorism . . . to the collapse of the American economy . . . to a soaring national debt and state budget deficits. The new administration takes office among signs of “the worst of times.”

While 2008 brought signs of what it is tempting to call the best and worst of times, the oldest of us have, in truth, seen – and the youngest of us have read histories of – times both better and worse. Just as the folks who lived through those times, we know not what comes next. Experience, however, suggests it will probably be a combination of both: the better for which we hope and strive, along with more of the worse that we fear. But, whatever comes, we know nothing will sustain us more than our friends and our faiths.

So, however fitting Dickens’ words might be, we would offer, instead, a different holiday thought for all, at the close of this truly epochal year . . . along with our best wishes for 2009 . . . by turning to lines from Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote,

Lord, behold our family here assembled.

We thank thee for this place in which we dwell;
for the love that unites us;
for the peace accorded us this day;
for the hope with which we expect the morrow;
for the health, the work, the food,
and the bright skies that make our lives delightful;
for our friends in all parts of the earth . . .

Give us courage, gaiety and the quiet mind.

Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors.

If it may not be, give us the strength to encounter
that which is to come,
that we may be brave in peril,
constant in tribulation,
temperate in wrath,
and in all the changes of fortune
and down to the gates of death,
Loyal and loving to one another.

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From all of us at Hawthorn – with the hope we may all be “brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all the changes of fortune…loyal and loving to one another” – best wishes for Happy Holidays and a great 2009!

John