THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Beginning a New
Year
Our usual greeting when a new
year dawns is “Have a happy New
Year!” Our wish is sincere, borne with goodwill to those we know and
love and
truly hope will prosper in the 365 days that stretch ahead as a new
beginning.
We may rue the old year’s too soon passing.
Whoever gave the year just ending the emblem
of an old man was no doubt trying to depict the rapidness of time’s
passing.
Although we can expect a regular
progression of growth for a human through stages of infancy, childhood,
adolescence, teens and the rolling adult decades until death, the year
itself
is pictured as maturing at a rapid pace—and is old and dying with
little regard
for any stages in between birth and death.
On the other hand, picturing a new
year as an infant with infinite possibilities is also a clever idea. With a baby we have great hopes and
expectations. So it is with the New
Year. Not knowing what it holds, we can
anticipate the best from its days, turning one by one as the pages of
an
unwritten book. So here is my sincere
wish for all of you readers: A happy New
Year to you! May 2005 hold blessings
unexpected and may the challenges be met with faith and confidence.
As I look at the headlines at the
beginning of this New Year, I am chagrined by the suffering and need
brought
about by the
We can hardly imagine the hardships
and heartaches the affected people are enduring. Our
humanitarian decency wants to help, to
reach out, to comfort. I think when I
read of the areas hardest-hit that friends of ours once served or now
serve as
missionaries in these locations. I
wonder if those still there are safe. I
pray they are.
As I write this on January 4, 2005, I
read headlines that President Bush has appointed his father, former
president
George H. W. Bush, and former president Bill Clinton to head private
fund-raising efforts to supplement the $350 million pledged in relief
to
tsunami sufferers by the U. S. Government.
The president was criticized for waiting three days to respond
to the
disaster, and then for his pledges from the U. S. first at $15 million,
upped
to $35 million, and then to $350 million.
The effort to raise private funds is a challenge.
Much is needed for health concerns, caring
for the survivors who are refugees, clean-up and economic recovery. Imagine not even having clean water to drink
when thirsty or nourishing food to eat when you are hungry, or clothing
to
replace the tatters that half-way cover your body.
These conditions, and worse, face five
million displaced people. The numbers
are almost beyond our comprehension.
My intention is not to be morose but
to remind us in this New Year that there is a world of need out there. We who are blessed need to share our
blessings. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:
All
sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year
And a sphere.
May we find a viable avenue of help
and contribute from our bounty to aid in alleviating pain and suffering
in this
sphere of earth where we live and move and have our being.
Then, then maybe we can have a “Happy New
Year.”
c2005 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published Jan. 6, 2005 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
Updated October 8, 2009
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