May each one of us be happy, healthy, and fully engaged with others (especially those whose views and experience may differ from our own).
May our country stand as a beacon for racial healing and harmony, for interfaith understanding, for economic justice, for gender equality, for commitment to science, and for borders open to all victims of terror and oppression.
May our world find peace and prosperity through collective security, remembering that our nation benefits only from policies that benefit the whole world.
If our goal is to keep America great, and make it even greater, that should be a good start. Some occasional chocolate wouldn’t hurt, either!
The praying mantis pictured above hung out for a while, last fall, on our butterfly bush. It then took up residence in our backyard compost bin, where I snapped this photo.
Have a great year, friends!
8 responses to “My Prayer for 2018”
prayer come through , Gary!
“Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. John 8:32
“True loss is for him whose days have been spent in utter ignorance of his self.”
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Well said Gary. Let’s keep this vision and it could become reality. I believe it anyway. Happy hopeful 2018 to you and all!
Thank you Gary for your beautiful prayer and I “hear hear!” that.
Wishing you and your loved ones a very happy year ahead .
There will be a lot of change; we in this country will grow spiritually. I am glad to be able to see it.
Gary,
Thanks so very much for sharing your prayer for 2018. I am more inspired to do my best to contribute to an ever advancing world. Let us strive to make each day better than yesterday as stated by President Obama, recently.
With gratitude for your literary contibutions,
Gwen
How will the open borders work?
Great question, Janelle. I don’t know the detailed answer. What I do know is that, given the chance, I’d place you in charge of hammering out those details.
Your mandate (as you of course already recognize) wouldn’t be to implement open borders per se. My 2018 prayer is for borders “open to all victims of terror and oppression”. So you’d develop a nuanced immigration policy welcoming, among others, people like the Baha’is of Iran fleeing religious persecution and the Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS. You’d also implement strong — perhaps even extreme — vetting measures to keep out terrorists and jihadists and neo-Nazis and their ilk.
What you wouldn’t do is try to slam down a blatantly unconstitutional Muslim ban by calling it a blanket “travel ban” on “Muslim majority” nations. (And don’t get me started on the crusade against people from nations recently characterized in the Oval Office by that vulgar eight-letter adjective that starts with “s” and rearranges to spell “his hotel”.)