December 26, 2021

Dear St. Martin of Tours Family and Friends,

I have been making almost no progress on my book. I hope to do better with the New Year. You know how resolutions are. And I am also feeling better after what was a very sad year for me, with the loss of so many friends of mine, and the greater awareness of my own mortality.

Much of the reason I haven’t worked on my book is because Dash wants to play. He’s going to be six this February. He’s no longer a puppy. I won’t have him in this life forever. I love being with him, and him with me.

Even so, I should be able to strike a balance. Also, I need to love my family members and friends as much as I love Dash, which means using the phone every evening to tell the people I care about how much I love them.

You, too: Take the time to phone that person you haven’t phoned in a long while, or to visit that person you haven’t seen for a while. You can’t turn back time. You can only use the time you have. And wasting it, counting on some tomorrow which may never arrive, is no way to live as an instrument of God’s love.

We must speak God’s love to others. We were given a voice by God for two primary reasons: to praise God and to speak words of encouragement and love to one another.

We were given fingers by God to write, to make food and build shelter, to invent, to hold hands, to make music, to teach, and to heal. But I don’t think our fingers were made for texting.

In Christ’s Love,