Happy New Year, y’all! After the year that was 2020–I’ve heard so many other metaphors for it, but we’ll just call it a “year”–I let Christmas linger a bit into the new year. (Just got my tree down a couple of days ago!) I’ve been feeling like we all need a little extra dose of the “Peace on Earth, good will towards men,” that the angels were talking about–you know the ones who appeared to the shepherds on that first Christmas…?

Peace on Earth??

Speaking of peace on Earth, one of my favorite Christmas carols contains the line, “And in despair I bowed my head. ‘There is no peace on Earth,’ I said. ‘For hate is strong and mocks the song, of peace on Earth, good-will to men!’” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned these words following personal tragedy as well as during a particularly bleak time in our nation’s history. But how true they ring today… no? HWL’s poem is shockingly relatable! Some days it just seems like the hits just keep on coming and the whole world has gone crazy.

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