A Flame Worth Carrying Into 2026
New Year’s Day Message
It is no surprise if 2026 arrives carrying the same burdens as the years before it—scandals that refuse to fade, the rising cost of living, and a people yearning for hope in the midst of crisis.
Yet even amid fear and fatigue, a flicker of hope endures. In the hands of those who truly care, that flicker can become a flame—for peace instead of conflict, for bread instead of hunger, for land instead of dispossession, for justice instead of silence.
Call it idealism, even impossibility, as may say. But history has always moved forward because some refused to accept that the world must remain as it is. In a modern age driven by crass materialism, it is easy to grow numb—to let scandal become background noise and injustice an everyday inconvenience. That numbness is the real danger.
Like any other year, this new year does not promise comfort. It offers something harder and more necessary: a choice. To look away, or to remain awake. To accept despair as normal, or to insist—quietly, stubbornly—that dignity, fairness, and compassion still matter.
May this new year find people not merely hoping, but acting; not merely enduring, but caring; not merely surviving, but believing that even in dark times, light is made by human hands.