Courage, it turns out, isn't one dramatic leap. It's the daily, unglamorous decision to keep authoring your own life instead of accepting the draft everyone else already wrote for you. —Leena Wilde Ryan

The New Year has arrived, and I think many of us are glad to wrap-up 2025. The anxiety and chaos that has become our daily bread in this country won’t stop because it’s a new year, of course, but the beginning of something always gives us a little boost of hope that change happens, no matter what. How it changes is largely up to us and how bad we want it. Ask 80% of people who made a resolution this week how they’re doing with that in March.

What is hope? It is a hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress is not the last word. It is a suspicion that reality is more complex than realism wants us to believe and that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual. -Rubem A. Alves

This is a quick "Welcome back!" newsletter. We will be back to the official editions of The Compass next week. I am always looking for interesting news, guest articles, and photos for the newsletter. Please send submissions to admin@uunewbedford by Mondays at 12:00 PM for the weekly Wednesday edition.