“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”
The elegance of this passage was first introduced to me ages and (almost) ages ago. Dickens published the work in 1859 as a historical novel featuring London and Paris during and around the French Revolution. In America, the Lincoln – Douglas debates and the question of slavery was pressed very near to the brink of war.
The words are timeless, even to this day. “…it was the season of LIght, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…” Our lives run in ups and downs. Some have found the key to that ever desired even keel, but most of us are seemingly searching for some magic cure to the roller coaster existence.
Today we have chosen, maybe unaware, to pick a side. We like sides as we find comfort and common values in the selected members of the team. Team members have been coached by people over the generations to share the fundamental rights and wrongs of one side or the other. Is that the essence of Dickens introduction? It is both wonderful and awful depending on the side you cheer for?
Has empathy been lost based our position in the game? Are we able to walk a mile in the moccasins of another and know their joy? Their sorrow? Their experience of living? Is our culture driven to believe there is only one right and all the others are wrong? Does opinion hold the position of a fact?
2018 was a year much like every other – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” I reluctantly bid it farewell. 2019 is mere hours away. May it’s arrival be greeted with a hardy hello and surrounded in the one thing so desperately needed in a season of Light and Darkness – Hope!
Hope in all that this new year brings is met as the best of times. And that when trials and struggle arrives, which it surely will, we meet it with the hope and faith we find in each other, regardless of the team we represent. May our better selves live in the hope we are unsure of, and that we posses the confidence to know hope reigns.
The vision cast at the end of Dickens novel continues to speak to the noblest intent. “It is a far, far better thing I