Viewpoints is a SpokaneFāVS feature where our writers respond to a weekly question. Readers are invited to participate by posting in the comment section below.
A new year comes with a new beginning. We asked FāVS writers what they hope 2017 will bring.
What are your hopes for the New Year?
John Hancock: Make the world a tiny bit better
That people re-take the opportunity to fill their daily lives with meaningful duties, relationships, dreams, and conversation. Too many of us have outsourced our imagination and hopes. Mindfulness is not available on our devices.
Neal Schindler: Family, Community, Faith
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Neal Schindler I hope President Trump stays true to his characteristic inconsistency and fails to push for the worst of the policies he’s proposed on the campaign trail and since the election, including merciless crackdowns on undocumented immigrants
- I hope to use Facebook less and read more books, and spend more time with friends
- I hope to find an even better balance between work, rest, and family time
- I hope to instill in my son, as he grows, the many important values my parents instilled in me, including compassion for the marginalized and oppressed and an unflappable belief in peace
- I hope my neighborhood, West Central, sees even less crime and even more cooperation and bridge-building among neighbors
- I hope Spokanites and people worldwide treat animals with more kindness
- I hope to see a strong, organized, and consistent pushback throughout our country against the tide of hate — racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny and sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on — that rose leading up to and following the election
- I hope to develop an even better understanding of how faith works in the lives of people I care about
- I hope to continue serving Spokane’s Jewish community in ways that truly benefit it, and to represent the community well to others in our area
- I hope for a resurgence of fact-based, rational thought and action, to counter the surge of “post-factual” speech and behavior we’ve endured for too long
- I hope to carve out more time to write for FāVS!
