As infants are chosen to play the baby Jesus in our Christmas pageant, it reminds us that every child is sacred. Every child is a new light, a new hope, a new saving grace to whom shepherds and kings, poor and rich, are called to bring gifts and to follow with full hearts. Every child is the face of God, even and especially the child born homeless. The story is told clearly: God came to Earth in a stable, in the darkest and poorest of times, because there was no room for grace in the marketplace of power.
Whom shall we choose this year? Whom shall we call upon with gifts, on bended knee, that we might learn better our yearning for good? Whom shall we say is bringing the light into this world that we might be saved? In these dark days, whom shall we name as the sweet little child who will take on the sins of the world?
I suggest this year it be Jakelin Caal Maquin, the 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who died earlier this month while in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol. Surely she is the lamb of God, as are the millions of other children ignored, turned away, driven from their homes and incarcerated by a system that worships with lavish expense the birth of a child 2,000 years ago but cannot provide the barest essentials to its own young.
Jakelin Caal Maquin, child of God, teach us what you have come to teach us. Help us to choose your light, the light of every migrating child on this planet, the light of every displaced child in occupied lands, the light of those martyred daily at the hands of a system that washes off and denies the blood it has sacrificed at the altar of greed. Jakelin Caal Maquin, help us to choose you this Christmas.
Nancy Jay Crumbine
Norwich
The writer is a Unitarian Universalist minister.
As reported in the Valley News, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that the Hanover Planning Board improperly denied site plan approval for a 70,000-square-foot indoor practice facility, which Dartmouth College will now be allowed to construct in the middle of Hanover, adjacent to a neighborhood (“Court Sides With College: Dartmouth Can Build Practice Facility,” Nov. 7).
The New Hampshire Superior Court, on the other hand, had ruled earlier that the Planning Board had been correct in denying the approval. But the college appealed this decision. Hanover residents, not just neighbors, spent considerable financial resources on legal assistance to defend the Planning Board’s decision before the two courts. The town of Hanover, on the other hand, was represented at the Superior Court by a lawyer, but she stepped aside to let the residents’ lawyer make the presentation. At the Supreme Court, the town did not even have legal representation.
I come away from this experience with a wish list: I wish that Hanover Zoning ordinances would be better able to prevent a property owner, including the college, from taking actions that do not conform with the vision of the town’s master plan and that negatively affect the quality of life for other residents. I wish that the college would be more sensitive to the preferences of the town’s residents instead of fighting legal battles when it does not get its way. And I wish the town’s administrators and its Selectboard would more strongly support the decisions made by its boards, even if they do not agree with a board’s decisions.
Gert Assmus
Hanover
I found Kevin McEvoy Leveret’s recent Forum letter interesting (“Marijuana Roadway Testing Unreliable,” Dec. 13).
On one hand, if the Governor’s Marijuana Advisory Commission held such a poorly scheduled and publicized hearing on such an important subject as marijuana legislation, the people in charge of managing the event should be reprimanded, and the event re-held under appropriate conditions. On the other hand, Leveret’s imagining of “a poor, defenseless victim” at a traffic stop is ridiculous, and comes across as the whining of someone who sees only the pleasure some get from marijuana and ignores the consequences it might have for others. What if that traffic stop was for a drunken driver? Would he feel the same way?
While I agree that the state’s current policy on roadway marijuana testing is extremely poor and unreliable, until a better method is found, what else should be done? Marijuana legalization was pushed through without providing a method for protecting the public from impaired citizens, which is a prime duty of the state. After all, the reason for laws is to protect people from each other. And hasn’t it been obvious to everyone that every time the subject of marijuana impairment and testing comes up, the marijuana proponents conveniently ignore it and talk only of its popularity and the financial benefits of selling it? If they truly believe that public marijuana use is not a problem, let’s hear their ideas on how to deal with those who abuse the privilege.
Stephen Raymond
Sharon
So much for the Lebanon City Council’s formal adoption in 2010 of “guiding principles,” which state: “All actions and policies of the government of the City of Lebanon shall be intended first and foremost to benefit the current residents of Lebanon” (“Lebanon Officials Defend Plans for Tech Development,” Dec. 19).
I live in a 596-square-foot, one-bedroom condominium off Exit 18 of Interstate 89. My taxes are more than $3,000 each year, and have not gone down since my move in 2002. The only impact I’ve noticed is that I have to allow one hour to get my grandkids from Lebanon to White River Junction for sport practices. The traffic is often backed up to the auxiliary parking lot for Lebanon High School students.
Perhaps it is time for the City Council to change its policy.
Terry Grigsby
Lebanon
I was among the bargain-hunters saying a sad “goodbye” at the Dartmouth Bookstore recently.
While browsing through books in the children’s section, I became aware of the music. Appropriately, Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi was playing and she was singing, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone …”
Margaret Bragg
Hanover