Unlike so many pictures of babies, the one featured on this Christmas card shows me in a particularly thoughtful mood. I love the way the light is shining on the bassinet and my hand is resting on the paw of my stuffed kitten. I have that wonderful slouched position of someone who has just mastered sitting up but has to balance her head’s weight against that of her body.

Lost in thought in 1947, lost in thought tonight as I look back over many, many Christmases. Our country is going through some tough times. Inflammatory rhetoric fills the news. In 1947 the country was taking a deep breath after a long siege of war in the Pacific and in Europe. But we had unleashed the bomb, and our lives had become more perilous than most of us knew.

I have spent my whole life with the specter of nuclear war as a back drop. I mourn the reality that my grandchildren are now hearing talk of intensifying that threat. Tonight I pray for peace. I pray that cooler heads will prevail. I pray that we can lay down our weapons and spend our money studying peace.

Amen.