A Christmas Morning Visitor
An original acrylic painting on canvas panel
9" X 12", unframed
( click on image to enlarge )
For at least another week or more, people are going to continue to wish each other a
happy new year. This annual ritual is intended to say that we have put all of the problems
of the old year behind us, and that the year ahead will be a better one for all of us. But
of course, when we exchange these greetings, we are deliberately pretending to have a
temporary ignorance of all the ongoing disasters and tragedies which we see in the news
everyday. We know that a change in the calendar does nothing to change world events.
Wars and death go on without letup. Global warming increases, while we continue to
cut down our rain forests and burn our fossil fuels. Countless numbers of species have
gone extinct, and our own survival is still in question. So what is it that makes us all so
willing to participate in this yearly charade of global harmony, and wish each other another
happy new year?
Maybe the answer is simply the word hope. There is a line from a poem by Alexander
Pope, which says "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." Hope is the only thing we
have left to cling to, when everything else is gone. There is a poem by Emily Dickinson
which carries that message. I will print it here.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet never in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Others convey the same message in simpler terms. In the Rogers and
Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, nurse Nellie sings that she is stuck
like a dope, with a thing called hope, and she can't get it out of her heart.
I tend to become very discouraged about the state of the world today,
but I too have to be optimistic, because without hope there is nothing left
for us. So let me offer my heartfelt hopes that all who read this, will have
a healthy and rewarding new year ahead.
Eugene P. McNerney
P.S. When you have the winter blues, chickadees and other song birds,
visiting a bird-feeder outside your breakfast room window, on cold,
snowy mornings, can be a real day-brightener. Chickadees are such
spirited little, aerial acrobats, that they spread good cheer.
A bird-feeder stocked with sunflower seeds, can be a good
inexpensive anti-depressant. That is a prescription I can recommend.
