Dear Friends,
I hope you are surviving the normal challenges of this season, combined with the left turns of Omicron. I also hope that you are filled with hope.
I highlight “hope” because I suspect that more than a few of you are fighting the fatigue of this pandemic, and perhaps more than a little frustrated with the polarization it has created.
In a recent New York Times article, Jeremy Greene – a Johns Hopkins University professor – suggested that the “psychic impact of the past two tumultuous years” has led to “collective dismay.” I understand that sentiment, but I trust you are finding it possible to live above it.
In light of this, let me share a prayer written by one of my favorite poets, Christina Rossetti. Her hymn, “In The Bleak Midwinter,” touches me profoundly each Christmas season, as does this prayer she wrote.
“O Lord, in whom is our hope, remove far from us, we pray, empty hopes and presumptuous confidence. Make our hearts so right with your most holy and loving heart, that hoping in you we may do good; until that day when faith and hope will be abolished by sight and possession, and love shall be all in all. Amen. (Christina Rossetti, 1830 – 1894)
As we prepare to embrace 2022, perhaps we celebrate the good of ’21 and also hope for an even better ’22.
Warmly,
Judy Kohl, Dean