An Epigraph for the New Year

The world is in a sorry state, and does not seem likely to improve itself anytime soon. The American government is shut down, and the British government is tearing itself apart. This does not bode well for the peace or security of the human race, but what can anyone do about it? The population in both countries seems hopelessly polarized, and the center cannot hold, it seems, for much longer. The dawn of the new year is clouded with uncertainty, and who knows what sort of future will come lurching out of the mists and gloom?

I have no answers. All I know is that as long as we have strength and hope, we should do what we can to make our own corner of the world sane and safe, and that begins with loving our neighbors - or if that is too much to ask, then loving our nearest and dearest - whom we are most likely to take for granted. It is good sometimes to stop and consider the true meaning of the much-parodied, much-derided phrase "Charity begins at home."

While we cannot choose our families, we can choose our friends - and regardless of how many or few of either there are in our life at any given time, the thing that really matters, beyond all social and political questions, is how we treat one another. Life is a passing thing - but love endures and propagates itself in countless untold ways down the years, from heart to heart and from soul to soul, parent to child and friend to friend.

So in this uncertain world, let us love while we can and whom we can, for we are all of us merely creatures of a day.  We all know what we would like to get from this transitory life - but what do we have to give?

The dear old Queen, God bless her, said something in one of her recent Christmas messages that I keep reflecting upon. I offer it here to my truckbuddies as an epigraph for the new year before us:

Not all of us can do great things; but we can do small things with great love.