Viewpoints: Hopes for the New Year

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.

That shared interest and commonalities among us, no matter our surface differences, can be re-learned. It takes only a small thoughtful effort to turn towards friendliness and away from haste, fear, and self-absorption.

That Mr. Trump follows through on his promises to make life better for average Americans. And if he wants to make deals, perhaps we can make a petro-agreement with Russia and China, instead of continuing 100 years of futile wars over oil.

That even more people wake up to the importance of nature stewardship, by finding personal relationship with natural places that feed us in some feeling way. That’s where preservation energy comes from, as antidote to our expansionist me-first tendencies.

That growth becomes less important in our planning. We have enough. Let’s work towards a healthier and fairer distribution, and less wasteful habit for what we already possess.

That each of us finds a springboard of some single thing that we can do happily, constructively, and generously, and use that tool to make the world a tiny bit better. Other people will notice, and I think they’ll join in with a thing of their own choosing.

Neal Schindler: Family, Community, Faith

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!