It seems easy to look back at this year and remember all of the tumultuous events that marked 2008 – economic implosions in the housing markets and then the financial markets; terrorist attacks in Pakistan and India; Governors in New York & Illinois taking precipitous falls from grace, straining our faith in our elected leaders; continuing genocide and humanitarian crisis in Africa; and war and conflict in Russia, the Gaza and yes, still in Iraq & Afghanistan.

But the wonderful thing about our human spirit is that we carry on with hope for something better in the coming days, months and years. Sometimes, an American Olympic Swimmer DOES break all of the records; sometimes BOTH candidates are about doing things a new way; sometimes people DO find the loves of their lives.

Wishing you all a wonderful new year,

Stewart

Sheenagh Pugh
(1950 – )

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.