Marking the year Click a picture to enhance it. Blue text = a clickable linkThis year past has been marked for me by both world and personal events. WarUkraine has been impossible to ignore. Soon after the war began I joined a fast every Friday, as a mark of collabaorative empathy, organised by the helping agency Christian World Service. It coincided with the common practice of fasting during Lent. Did it achieve anything? It certainly reminded me weekly of the agony families in that country were suffering as women and children fled and men stayed at home to fight. Climate oppressionClimate change tragedy alarmed me this year. Somalia in the Horn of Africa has been persecuted by horrendous drought several years in a row. Pakistan has had to endure voracious floods. Hopeful signsFortunately, to countermand these nasty happenings there have been some hopeful signs. The main one has been the agreement at the Montreal Cop15 conference just before Christmas, to curb the loss of biodiversity worldwide. Nearly 200 countries managing to agree to measures such as the 30-30 formula (30% conservation estates both land and sea by 2030) was a remarkable achievement. I do from time to time feel optimistic about our hard hit world Books as markersThe books I've read help mark the nature of a year for me. I don't often read fiction but one novel I read mid-year stands out because it's story line is so easy to imagine in real life. That was Never by Ken Follet. Mature in his writing and old enough to know reality when he sees it, Follet's story is about and ends with nuclear war. The book is Putinish but it does also carry two happy love stories – and love stories, thankfully, are also reality. Farm, by Nicola Harvey, about the author's and her husband's forays into 'regen ag' on her fathers's Lake Taupo farm, is a stimulating read which may well help point the way farming has to go to be ecologically safe. Barbara Winton's biography of her father, If it's not impossible, made me feel good about human beings. It's the story of a man who saved Jewish children by train-ing them out of Europe just before the second world war. The Modern Singhs, a story of cross cutlural love and marriage was astonishing, and soon after that I really enjoyed a birthday present from Marion – Yvette, the story of home town (Dunedin) sports heroine Yvette Williams, who won the women's long jump gold medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics . Stories about human determination, care, love and innovation all these books were. Collectively I think they marked a good year. Or at least, as I look back, reading them helped to mitigate the effect of the nasties. Close-inI'll also remember 2022 for close-in things. Covid. I caught a version that began with, then continued with, diarrhoea for some weeks and is still lingering. I'll remember 2022 for that. However I'll also remember 2022 for the help I get from practices like meditation. A couple of years ago I discovered The Jesus Prayer Meditation on a YouTube site called Christian Mindfulness. I use it daily and find it a great anchor in the unsettled world in which we live. OnwardI wish all my readers well for the New Year. I'm taking two weeks blog holiday now but I'll be back again Friday 20 January. From then I look forward to joining up with you throughout 2023.
Yours John
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