People approach the New Year as a new beginning with resolutions and reflections on how to improve on life internally and externally.  In reflecting on the year past, I find myself with a sense of satisfaction in my heart....gratitude for a year of peaceful living and life well-spent in service to God and humanity.  As with any human, there are imperfections to be perfected and wounds to be healed, but there is also the sure knowledge that all things are possible when humans and God join together to make change.  On the 20th a change will be happening for our country and our world.  How might this change us internally, I wonder?  Might Americans and earthlings alike find in themselves a renewed hope for real and lasting change in the direction of good and peaceful living?  My heart is hopeful.  I hold out hope for the human heart to be moved to accept the challenge of peace internally and externally...peace that comes from forgiveness and a healed heart and spreads to relating to our neighbors, to foreigners, even to our 'enemies' in a new way.  As Ghandi said, 'Be the change you want to see in the world.'   May I take some poetic license and say, 'Be the peace you want to see in the world.'  Blessings on your being new!  Rev Mary Francis