Thoughts On The New Year

Looking back, 2017 was a year that most will remember as the year of uncontrollable wildfires that scorched the west coast, sexual scandals in the entertainment world, the North Korean nuclear arms threat, hurricanes Harvey and Irma, a Las Vegas concert cut short by a torrent of bullets, and a system of government rocked to its very core.

While there were some very tragic events in the past year there were also moments of brilliance and hope.

The US saw its first continent-crossing total solar eclipse in ninety-nine years, and the earth gave birth to its first new island in more than fifty years, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, hundreds of miles east of Fiji.

David Capuzzo, a man from Brooklyn jumped onto Manhattan subway tracks to save a homeless man who had fallen.

Officer, Ryan Nash, shot and injured the terrorist, who had used a rented truck to kill eight people and injure twelve others in Lower Manhattan.

At Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center doctors and nurses calmly did their jobs, after a gunman killed a doctor, and shot six other people. Despite their anguish, medical staff worked around the clock to treat the injured.

The three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year J. J. Watts raised more than thirty-seven million dollars to support the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Anne Dufourmantelle, a French philosopher who praised risk-taking died while saving drowning children. Of Anne I will best remember what she said at a 2015 interview, “When there really is a danger that must be faced in order to survive there is a strong incentive for action, dedication and surpassing oneself.”

We can dwell on the tragedies of the past and cower in the face of an uncertain future or we can go forward with Anne’s message safe in the knowledge that as Americans we will always surpass ourselves.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce said, “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”

Happy New Year!