The problem with loving so many people is that everything is personal. Maybe leaders of nations should have their children and brothers and cousins in Baghdad, in Tel Aviv, in Gaza, in nuclear-capable India or Pakistan.
We have loved ones in three embattled zones right now, one reassures me that he is thirty minutes from the bombing. This is not reassuring to me.

My prayer for the New Year is the prayer of St Francis of Assisi: Lord, make us instruments of thy peace . . .