Christmas 2023

Jean and Terry | © 2023 Terry Wild

My friend Terry Wild met Jean in Lexington, Kentucky. For me, their story is a confirmation that Everything Is Already Perfect. It’s not important how they met—they have lived full lives in other places with other people—it is only important that now, in the true December of their lives, they are together.

I first met Terry in the 70s when we were both building our professional careers—not in some large city—but in rural America close to the land and surrounded by farms, rivers, and gentle people. We were blessed to have abundant talent in an area ready for what we had to give. Our work celebrated all that was good at that miraculous time when one person with a singular vision and youthful energy could accomplish anything within reason.

Today, I was remembering those days long gone with a sense of keen nostalgia accompanied by the feeling that I was somehow adrift and anchorless, a stranger in a strange land far from home with no way back. And then Terry’s Christmas greeting arrived in my email. In an instant, my longing for what was, turned instead, to gratitude and acceptance.

Thank you Jean and Terry. Like you, I am where I need to be. Everything is already perfect.

—Stephen Newton, December 8, 2023