2017

I wish there was a treaty we could sign.

It’s over now, the water and the wine.

We were broken then, now we’re borderline.

I wish there was a treaty, I wish there was a treaty, between your love and mine.

So ends the last song on Leonard Cohen’s final album, released two weeks before his death. He acknowledges the ending of things. He acknowledges a tenuous peace, some progress made that he wants to preserve, as though whatever had healed his (their) brokenness was fickle and might be lost.

As we head into 2017, these two themes will be important. First, that some things are ending. A presidency, an administration, a way of looking at the world. And second, a hopefulness for peace and redemption, that this divided country can come together again. Of that I’m not certain, but I’m hopeful.

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(This is the first post in a project I’m kicking off this year. You can read about the project here)