Hope and the New Year.

Here we are, the last day of 2011. Y'all, this has been a hard year. For me, personally, for our family, and for many of you also. My energy, my faith, my heart, and at times, my very soul, have been stretched so far I thought they'd break. I have learned that there are hardships that you just can't imagine until you're faced with them, and it has taken all the grace I can muster, and some I've had to fake, to keep on walking.

But you know what? We're all still here, more or less upright, even if this brute of a year got one last jab in by putting my mom in the hospital in Virginia with cellulitis to celebrate the arrival of 2012. Thanks, buddy. Don't let the door hit you in the backside on your way out.

We'll be celebrating by eating crockpot chili and staying home. I am totally okay with that. In the midst of some very dark days, we've had some really amazing miracles appear out of the ethers, and I've found myself a circle of friends that have wrapped themselves around me like a blanket during the hard times. I have stumbled, and been caught by love and compassion, sometimes in the most unexpected places, at every turn.

So here's to the end of the longest year I can remember, and a fresh start in 2012. If it's not the end of the world, I do believe it has to be a better year. I heard a wonderful poem by Wendell Berry on this program last week about hope in the face of hardship, I'm paraphrasing, but the gist is this: Against all odds, hope sets off on its' desperate search for reason."

Here we go, y'all. Hope beyond reason - the last, great good in the human soul. I wish you all a peaceful and safe New Year, wrapped in the knowledge that you are where you are meant to be, and surrounded by the all the love to which you are entitled.