I don't know about you, but the lens through which I view my life has been drastically transformed this past year. Before the pandemic, the things I worried about were not even marginally comparable: should we walk around the neighborhood in the morning, or save it for the evening? Ribs for dinner or barbecue? Which cute little North Carolina town shall we visit today? Banner Elk?, Blowing Rock?, Boone?, Brevard?, Bryson City? Or do we go really crazy insane and consider visiting a town that doesn't begin with B? The pandemic changed all that, and I imagine most of us are glad to leave 2020 in the rear view. But perhaps this is a good time to focus on that mirror, and try to find the positive, even if "positive" is a BAD WORD these days. The internet is gracious to give us the Top Ten Awful Things That Happened in 2020: Coronavirus, Australian Bushfires, Ukrainian Flight Crash, Death of Kobe Bryant, Lockdown in Italy, Postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympics, Taal Volcano Eruption, PIA Plane Crash, Taj Mahal Incident, the death of George Floyd...and those are just the "highlights." So in defiant retaliation, I offer you a list of a "Johnny Carson-esque" Top Ten Twenty-Twenty Warm Fuzzies from many different internet sources, in the hope that it uplifts you and reminds you that, as bad as 2020 was, there were some good, maybe even some great moments we can focus on as we reflect on the year we just closed out. 10: Drive-in movies made a comeback, and home-made movies became a family event, from scripting to filming to watching the finished project, with extended family members of all ages participating. 9: A ground swell of people sewed face masks for people who needed them. 8: Andre Bocelli held an beautiful, emotional concert on Easter Sunday in an empty Milan cathedral. 7: People bought books. And read them. 6: Board games returned. Families shared time with each other. 5: Our. Amazing. Doctors and Nurses. God love them and bless them all. 4: People...outdoors?? Say WHATT??? 3: Many families used the down-time to exercise, and no doubt felt physically and mentally better for it. 2: Our planet was given a well-deserved break from carbon emissions and ocean garbage. 1:We had our priorities rearranged. While I do not ever want another pandemic to descend on our planet, I am grateful for the reality check. It has thrown my happy little world into the diminsion of stark reality, reminding me that time is short. This observation makes the words of Mark Twain even more poignant: "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." We all can do a better job answering that second question. Twain knew something about the urgency of finding that "why." He was born two months early and was in poor health for the first 10 years of his life. His mother coddled him, which must have exasperated him enough to develop his mischievious streak. But "Mom" got the last laugh, though. When she was in her 80s, her son asked her if she had been uneasy about his poor health. She told him she was worried about him the whole time. Clemens asked her if she was afraid he wouldn't live. She said, "No. I was afraid you would." Now we know where he got his sense of humor. Would that we all were just as feisty, and all our mothers just as terrified. Perhaps that is the "gift" that 2020 has given us: a refocusing of our priorities so that we can fully appreciate those two important days in each of our lives, and share our reason for being here in a meaningful way.

When I was a college student some decades ago, I majored in English and minored in journalism. At that time the majority of American households received a newspaper. Radio and television news broadcasts were anchored by the likes of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, David Brinkley: men who seemed to me to be unbiased, honest and noble, and beyond reproach. Even in my childhood I recognized the journalistic weight that Walter Cronkite brought to the television screen. These news men and women of my formative years were professionals, dedicated to objective reporting. These days, however, anyone with a computer or smart phone can set forth their own agenda, including me. And it makes me wonder: are we better served? Is a podcaster or blogger even in the same league with the journalists of my youth? How do the major network news reporters of CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC,or Fox News measure up to the journalists of decades past? And perhaps more importantly, does a plethora of opinions translate to more insight, making it easier to compare and contrast and get to the truth quicker? Or are we just calling it a broad spectrum of views when, in fact, it is nothing more than an infinite number of personal agendas? Is the noise of so many voices actually leaving us with no real absolute truth? Is there even such a thing as absolute truth, if the backdrop is a corporation aimed at getting ratings to boost their ad sales? There is no getting away from a corporate bottom line. This is our system, and it is a good one. But it is far from perfect. And what I'm seeing now, in some news outlets, is frightening to me. There is a news outlet for every political leaning. Instead of newsmen and women offering us unbiased, (or at least balanced) recounts of the day's events, we, as consumers, seem to want our own personal version of the truth. Give me that, we demand, if you want me to watch. Skew it toward the other guy, and I'll turn the channel and buy what they're selling. I have always tried to be open-minded. I try to listen and learn from other people's perspectives, keenly aware that I don't know what I don't know, and what I don't know amounts to just about everything. There is always something to learn; I may not have thought about something the way you think of about it. The year we just closed out has tried to teach us that important lesson. It has showed us (more of) our weaknesses, and it has pointed us to improvements that can be made, if we are willing. America is nothing if not an evolving movement forward, of people from all walks of life, and points of view, and creeds and religions and every other kind of word that embodies diversity. I believe we still harbor the desire to understand each other on a personal and meaningful level. I believe we still want to find the common ground. This is what makes us special. This is what makes us strong. This is what makes us America. God bless. And Happy New Year.