Dec. 28, 2006

Dear David,

The beginning of the new year is always a time for reflection, of clearing the head, beginning again, renewing hope. Twenty-six-hundred years ago the "Tao Te Ching" painted this picture of the way life can be: "In harmony with the Tao, the sky is clear and spacious, the earth is solid and full, all creatures flourish together, content with the way they are, endlessly repeating themselves, endlessly renewed."

I am resolving to live more harmoniously in 2007 without being sure how. I think it happens or doesn't almost every minute of the day. Lao-tzu writes of surrendering to the Tao by giving up judgments and desires, making way for compassion, and realizing the best action doing nothing. Doing nothing means forcing nothing and allowing what will be to be. Letting go.

I'm letting go of thinking of our nieces as children. They'd getting to be grownups. Three were here for the holidays. Danica has joined a Wine of the Month Club in Kansas City and brought me one of the delicious benefits of membership. She is a dental hygienist who is learning how to be a theatrical costumer. Darci is preparing for her one-woman play at Missouri State University. Not so long ago she portrayed Sister Robert Anne in the musical comedy "Nunsense." Now she's a woman imprisoned at Guantanamo.

Someone in the family gave Casey a Victoria's Secret gift card for Christmas. She has joined a sorority at Ole Miss and in only a few months there has adopted what could be described as a Mississippi socialite patois. She bounced from one subject to another so quickly I barely kept up. Or maybe that's just youthful conversational multitasking.

I think Casey invited DC and me to the Ole Miss-Mizzou football game in Oxford next September.

The Bible speaks of man having dominion over "every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." To me that means we have responsibility for the welfare of the earth. Up to now we have not done a good job of taking care of her. That responsibility belongs to each of us, not just to our government.

The "Tao Te Ching": "When man interferes with the Tao the sky becomes filthy, the earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles, creatures become extinct."

In the coming year I hope to see progress in the world that will improve the likelihood of these lovely young women thriving in their careers and marriages to come.

In the coming year I hope to see our community flourish with the opening of the River Campus School for the Visual and Performing Arts. Many fine artists are coming here soon. Many years from now, when political and economic and social debates are forgotten, people will still remember having their breath taken away by these artists' demonstrations of creativity.

Those of us who aren't artists must remember that living is an art, too. Raising children is an art. Teaching is an art. Listening is an art. Being content with yourself is an art.

"The Tao Te Ching": "The Master views the parts with compassion, because he understands the whole. His constant practice is humility. He doesn't glitter like a jewel but lets himself be shaped by the Tao, as rugged and common as a stone."

In the coming year I aspire to become more and more like a stone.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.