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Dear Friends, So it’s now 2003! I can remember thinking, such a short time ago, how far away it seemed to the millennium. Not that I’d any particular reason to look forward to it, just the idea that I’d like to survive into another era, so to speak. I can’t think why now. It doesn’t seem any better so far than the last one. Deep down I must be an optimist – I can never seem to rid myself of the idea that things will get better. What with the threat of war hanging over us, and the danger of economic and environmental collapse, optimism seems highly misplaced. As it was remarked to someone who was getting married for the umpteenth time – ‘it seems to be the victory of hope over experience’. The resilience of the human spirit is truly amazing. One sees it all the time in my line of work. People who are very sick, those whom life seems to have dealt a pretty poor set of cards with which to play, often these have more to teach us about life, than those who seemingly have everything. I used to be part of a Riding for the Disabled Group. Sometimes I’d be weary for one reason or another and think I couldn’t be bothered to go. Yet duty called and I’d drag myself off, grumbling. I never failed to return uplifted and humbled. Some of the riders were in such a poor state and yet they gave to those who helped, far more than we ever gave them. Hope is a spiritual gift – it comes from God, whether we acknowledge this or not. It is faith in the future tense – we have faith for today, hope for tomorrow. No it doesn’t mean we live in cloud cuckoo land, but that somewhere deep inside of us there is a resilience and strength of spirit we often overlook until we’re up against things. For some, being hopeful is a natural way of life, for others it is much more of a struggle. Yet we are all capable of living ‘in hope’ no matter what our circumstances, with God’s help.May you all find seeds of hope in 2003. Janice |