Out with the Old

and in with the new year

Hello everyone,

I wish you all a merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2025. I don't usually send 'year end letters' but this year's Canada Post strike meant that I could only send digital cards, and I mailed no original cards for the first time in 43 years.

Thees letters customarily describe what happened to the sender during the past year. 2024 was a year of sorrow for me and many of my friends.

Rather than put a damper on your own celebrations, I will instead list what I wish for all of us in 2025.

This wish list doesn't need a magical being or genie to make them happen. People will have to change their behaviour. That is a wish that can only be granted by humans.

It's a very tall order but wishes sometimes are granted.

Here goes:

I wish for:

1. Tolerance of people with different views and ways of living.

2. The restoration of civil discourse in private and public life. An end to toxicity.

3. The ending of all current wars and a joining of nations together in common cause to save our planet. Monies currently wasted on war will be used to build housing, repair infrastructure, feed the hungry, restore damaged areas of the natural world and preserve it.

4. Recognition that non human beings share the planet with us and that we are totally dependent on them. They provide air, food, and clean water.

5. The end of money worship. Money may talk, but it doesn't think. No person or nation may be 'first' in everything.

It seems as if we are revisiting many of the negative events from the last century. So my last wish will be that humanity actually learns something from past mistakes.

I can dream, can't I?

Happy 2025,

Nancy Beiman

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