THREE! TWO! ONE! Happy New Year of Peace!

What surprises, adventures, challenges, and wishes will the New Year hold for us? With resolutions and intentions, we have the opportunity to view the year as a new beginning, a clean slate on which to write a new story. Rather than our same resolutions, by which I mean new solutions to old problems, what if we were to focus on real problem solving for ourselves and our world? What would it be like to enter the New Year, if we didn’t see ourselves as escaping from 2025, but rather as fueling our hearts with the lessons we’ve learned about our gifts and where they’re needed? What if all of our intentional solutions for the world in 2026 were Love and Peacemaking?

Looking back, 2025 was simply the year it was. There is no need for me to republish the horrific headlines and breaking news stories that shocked us and captured our attention.

It’s a new day and soon a new year. It’s time for us to challenge a model that says Life and the World happen to us. When will we learn that we are all one people, sacred human beings worthy of respect and dignity? Together and separately, we can create new ways to interact with what is. Now is the time to recognize that we have power to change the way the world functions.

Changing outcomes is a slow process. Changing our responses is something we can do right now. If we’re united, each of us bringing our Power and Peace to a situation, we can change the course of history. We can have affordable healthcare, sensible immigration policies…insert your most pressing social issue here. Our children can have enough to eat and an excellent education. We do not have to have troops in our streets rounding up citizens and immigrants. And, as if that were not enough, we do not need those troops using unthinkable force against innocent people. Our politics may differ, but I firmly believe that none of us condone the heinous, degrading violence being used on our streets and in detention facilities.

For this to happen we each need to call upon our higher angels and use the gifts we have been given for Peacemaking. Together, we will make a world of difference.

What can you bring to 2026 to help it become A Year of Peace? The first of our Years of Peace. How do we work to multiply our gifts and allow them to stretch more deeply into our community? I want to know. I want to know where you’re working and on what to stabilize Life in our Valley. Let’s explore the possibilities. Together. Questioning, Exploring, Postulating — and Laughing All the Way.

In the Christian tradition, Three Kings Day is known as the time the Wise Ones are thought to have appeared with gifts and riches for a child who would be called the Prince of Peace. What could we, what will we, the Wise Ones of the Susquehanna Valley, bring to this Year of Peace?

A friend of mine had a wonderful thought. She reminded me that charitable organizations have matching donations. What if we were to have matching Peace donations? How could we compliment one another’s gifts and work for the things we care about? Let’s consider it!

I look forward to finding out together. Let’s defy the national despair and create for ourselves a Happy, Communal, Healthy, and Peaceful New Year!

Salaam, Shalom, Peace, and Blessed Be!