Warm good wishes to all for a healthy and prosperous new year, inwardly and outwardly. We hope your prayers will be answered, especially your prayers for peace, for a stronger, more civil nation, for understanding and cooperation between persons, parties, and nations. Let the poor be better fed, the naked clothed, the shivering warmed . . . and let the forests and rivers grow thick with fishes and trees, turtles and birds, etc. Let humankind become a better steward of the planet that has been given to us to inhabit (but not to waste), more worthy and more considerate of the natural abundance around us.

We wish and pray for strength and persistence in abundance for those who work for the public good—health, education, employing the jobless and feeding the hungry—and for the reinforcement of the infrastructure (roads, levees, bridges) and the restoration of the environment we all need. Let the defenders of the public good prevail against those (especially the already highly privileged) who would weaken and diminish the benefits and liberties hard-won over many years of struggle for the common man and woman. And courage and abundance of cooperation for those who work to protect the earth and living things.

For those wearied by much toil and little pay, let there be better opportunities. For the discouraged, let there be rewards for their efforts, and renewed energy for further attempts. For the hungry parents of hungry children, and the idle, frustrated would-be workers, let there be well-paid labor, generosity of neighbors, and new chances to find and earn the bread of life. None should have to be hungry, nor without work.

For all these things, and more, we pray, and wish you and all your friends and family a much better new year, and stronger hope and energies, in 2014.

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