Dear 2025,

Well, here you are, another year! The world carries on spinning and, frankly, it can all be rather dizzying. As you arrive, 2025, there’s a whole lot of madness going on. Good leaders are few and far between, and in almost every country, things are being allowed to happen that are troubling.

This beautiful planet continues to turn, held, as it is, so wondrously, in the midst of a vast universe. The intense concentration of energy and life here on earth remains staggering.

Humankind, as I say, is crazy and troubling and violent and messy right now. Our screens – so many screens – pulsate with a constant stream of terrifying news, and with the constant buzz of things to consume and compete with.

Hope remains, of course. How can we live on a planet this beautiful, this full of colour and life and growth, and there not be hope?

Of course, you, time, help us with this. The world keeps spinning, and here you are, another year, and our long, long history tells us that there is always hope. For every story of terror, violence and carelessness, there are countless stories of love, kindness and overcoming.

Like the story of pine forest regeneration in the mountains of Scotland, how, over decades, people can redeem something of what was lost because of our past recklessness. (Regeneration, by Andrew Painting).

Like the tender connections made between white, middle-class, male, Shane Claiborne, and those he met in Calcutta. When he bandaged their wounds, looked into their eyes and shared their food, hope glimmered. (The Irresistable Revolution, Shane Claibourne).

Like the friends who rallied around Brad Aronson and his family when his wife had leukemia. “They saw every crack in our armour and rushed in to fill it,” he writes. “Our lives were more beautiful because we’d received that love.” (Human Kind, by Brad Aronson)

Then there’s the story of Katherine May, who, after the isolation of the Covid 19 lockdowns, re-discovered enchantment and connection with the world, and wrote to remind us that there is still magic to be found. (Enchantment, by Katherine May).

There are those who inspired Isabel Allende’s novel, The Wind Knows my Name. These are people who refused to let a powerful fool brand brave, desperate families as criminals. They would not look past the systemic separation of children from their parents and they worked to make it right. (The Wind Knows my Name, by Isabel Allende).

There are stories of everyday miracles, like those told by Sarah Bessey. (Miracles and Other Reasonable Things, by Sarah Bessey). And there are many more writers, telling all sorts of stories, with warmth, wit and wisdom. From the strong, loving characters created by Libby Page, Sally Page, Alexander McCall Smith and Fran Hill, to the wise advice of Anne Lamott, to the journey stories of Felicity Cloake and Penelope Swithinbank, there are so many words of hope that will stay with me as you begin, 2025.

There are other stories, too, which will carry on as we turn the pages of our calendar, as January passes into February, and as you, 2025, carry us on. These are stories of ordinary life. These are the stories of those of us (all of us?), who keep getting up each morning and giving our best to the day, whatever that looks like. Those of us who, though sometimes shaken, or saddened, or struggling, will continue to try to find our way. We will try to live with love, try to care, to laugh sometimes, and to be wise.

What you remind us, as you arrive, 2025, is that we have time. We don’t know how much of it, but we know we have you, now. We have here and now, this day, in this new year, on this stunning planet, in this mysterious universe. May we understand the preciousness, the responsibility and the wonder of this gift.