Heather Lende's Blog

Joy is not made to be a crumb.- Mary Oliver

Hi,

I have been thinking of you. I have been in Tenakee for most of March, shoveling snow! So much snow, every day, and working on and on off on a couple of  projects, a how-to write an obituary book, a collection of essays,  and a novel.( Or at least I think it may be a novel, someday.)

But mostly I have been working on my soul and general well-being. Taking time daily to pray and meditate, journal, walk and exercise– and connect with people. Listening, calling, texting, visiting.  Playing connect four and tick tack toe. Reading out loud. Grandchildren joined me for part of the Tenakee time, and Chip too.

I have spent a year-plus meeting regularly with a counselor to deal with a lot of stuff, that as she says, used to serve me, but doesn’t anymore. I’ve  changed, in a good way.  Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Also, all that shoveling, wood-splitting and walking has me limping with an IT band issue. Sigh. I’m on the mend and will be in the ice-free sunshine soon with a big outdoor pool to swim laps in.

We are heading off to Florida for Easter  with Grandma Joanne and Chip’s sister.  A couple of grandkids are coming too, with their mom JJ. Then we go to Boston where Chip and JJ will run the marathon, and back home at the end of the month. I love our dog sitter, so all is in fine hands here.

I  probably won’t be checking in again until May, when I will be back with regular columns, postcards, and Sunday’s Thoughts, both here and at Substack. At some point I may migrate the whole thing over there, but, I have some issues with the social media, click and sell aspect of it.

In the mean time, you could book a spot to hang out with me and other writers at the North Words Writers Symposium in Skagway at the end of May .

I have a poem about Mountain Goats  in a beautiful brand new book. It is full of illustrations and poems and essays by Alaskan artists.  If you love Alaska, you will love the Alaska Literary Field Guide. Please support your independent bookstore if you buy a copy.

Also on the good news front, the Haines Glacier Bear boys were second at State, two local teams won divisions at Gold Medal in Juneau, and there was a No Kings rally in Tenakee ( we were there) and one in Haines ( before we arrived home),  and I keep calling my senators and representative. Have faith. Do what good you can, where you are, be nice to people and all sentient beings, and  don’t miss the joy right in front of you as spring arrives- ( well, soon, I hope?)

This  poem from Mary Oliver has been shared with me by a bunch people lately, so you may know it, but still,  keep it handy. She’s right.

Don’t Hesitate
BY MARY OLIVER
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

The Elizabeth Peratrovich Day celebration was just what I needed — I know it’s only one small chapter in the book of time bending toward justice, as Martin Luther King Jr. said—but it felt bigger.

The event, on a Tuesday morning at 9:30 in the Haines School gym, honored the memory of Alaska’s great civil rights leader, Elizabeth Peratrovich. Back in 1945, the Lingít woman with roots in Deishu (or Haines) gave a speech that inspired the passage of our state’s anti-discrimination law, the first of its kind in the country. She was motivated by the racism she and her husband Roy, also Alaska Native, faced when he took a job in Juneau with the government. They couldn’t live in a house near his office, send their children to a good school, go to movies or even eat out. “No Natives” signs were legal.

She was the final speaker before the legislature’s second vote. The first one, two years before, had failed. She said,“I would not have expected that I who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded history behind them of our Bill of Rights.” She also said, “Either you are for discrimination or against it,” and that discrimination is the “currency” of “the great superman who believes in the superiority of the white race.” When a lawmaker who made racist comments during the debate, asked her if she actually believed that a law would end discrimination, she asked him if outlawing murder had ended homicide. The intent counts.

Elizabeth Peratrovich Day became a holiday in Alaska in 1988, but there are still plenty of Alaskans that can’t pronounce her name. Even here it wasn’t very long ago that a handful of women from the Haines and Klukwan Alaska Native Sisterhoods gave the first presentation to the school. Elder Marilyn Wilson was their spokesperson. She stood in the middle of the gym, wearing her blue and white ANS sash and cap and read a brief biography of Mrs. Peratrovich. The Charlie Brown sound system muddied her words. It lasted less than fifteen minutes.

Our town’s biggest celebration of Elizabeth Peratrovich Day yet lasts for over an hour and is followed by Native Youth Olympic games. The school principal tells the students that we remember her story because she was an ordinary woman who did something extraordinary. He says we can all be like Mrs. Peratrovich and notice wrongs, big and small, and make them right. A tribal administrator reminds the children (and adults) to be kind and respectful. To honor our differences.

The music teacher (who is not an old hippie by a long shot) directs the high school choir in Blowin’ in the Wind. Before they sing, he reads the lyrics.

Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

In Marilyn Wilson’s  generation, Alaska Native society was nearly destroyed by government, church and school authorities. More recently there are the news-making revelations (to non-Natives anyway) about sickening atrocities committed at boarding schools and orphanages where Native children were sent, often against their family’s will. The gym we are in used to be named in memory of a superintendent that committed horrible crimes against mostly Native boys.

Now it’s full of joy, pride and a kind of wonder. Love, too. A lot of love.  How did we get here, and isn’t this grand? Students of all backgrounds, basketball stars and kindergarteners, wear regalia they have made in their classrooms. For months, local experts have guided the non-Native PE teacher in the ways of Lingít dance and they praise his efforts. After the songs and speeches, the bleachers empty into a river of children and adults. Some folks are cautious, they don’t know the moves, or are shy about dancing in public, but a Native leader cheerfully calls out the bench-sitters by name, she won’t take no for an answer —we all belong here– and so we sway and step, some easily, some awkwardly to the heartbeat of the drum and the ancient language of Here.

Marilyn moves slowly, holding a friend’s arm, so I take the other side. “I will make it,” she assures us. “It is very emotional,” she says. Her cheeks are wet and she is smiling. She is not alone. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, ” she says.

This is a kind of mercy, isn’t it?

“We can write our senators, particularly now this week, when funding for these agencies is being debated. Perhaps the most important message of all is that this is our moment to determine who we are as Americans, who we are as the United States of America.Minnesota is showing us all the way. We can follow their example wherever we are and do what we can to recreate and restore the decency and kindness that sustain us all.” Bishop Marian Budde

Yesterday, I spoke with gentle Emma in Lisa Murkowski’s office and felt better. I know she cares.

Today I reach the answering machine. I thank Lisa for her Op-Ed supporting NATO. I tell her that my grandfather was in the French Legion of Honor because of his work in the resistance in WW II. Racing the time limit, I say that since she and Senator Dan Sullivan are friends, could she please remind him that he is a Marine and we need him now to do what honorable, courageous and committed Marines do? I thank her quickly for not giving ICE any more money right now, assuming she won’t, and my time is up.

Hello Senator Sullivan, I say to the answering machine. It’s Heather Lende in Haines, again. You are a Marine and say your Catholic faith influences your decisions. In that case, I implore you to do what you know is right as a soldier and a Christian. Don’t give ICE more money. Speak out against abuses. You have always been a NATO supporter. Please stop the president from wrecking it. I still hope you will do the right thing one of these days. God bless you and have mercy on your soul.

–Or something like that.

I don’t have a script. I just talk fast and calmly, so I won’t overthink it.

I call Alaska’s only congressman often. Nick Begich’s phone is not out of order like it was yesterday. I hope the nice young man that answered a few days ago will pick up. Then, I told him about a conversation I had with a MAGA friend that said he is as sick of the Republicans as he is of the Democrats, because all politicians, Trump included, only care about billionaires. The aid seemed appreciative of my comments. Today, he does not answer. I tell the recording that I have never wished I was a Republican congressman until now.— I envy you because your opinion matters more than anything I say and more than over what half of all Americans say. What an opportunity for doing good. Have courage — I tell him that I admire his political family and know that what is happening right now in Minneapolis or the world doesn’t reflect Begich family values. Time runs out.

I hang up and think about the horrific killings in Minneapolis and pray for little Liam who looks just like my grandson Teddy– being grabbed at school and dragged away to a Texas prison —of masks, guns, screaming, hiding, show me your papers—Is this what 1938 felt like? It could be the Kristallnacht campaign.

Episcopal Bishop Budde says, “This is our moment to decide who we are as Americans, who we are as the United States of America.” Tomorrow, I’ll say that in my calls. Just that. Quietly, maybe even repeat it since there will be time on the recording. Like a prayer. Like Lectio Divina.

I would have kissed Lyle if I was in the studio with him when he gave the Safety Talk on KHNS. Well, I would have liked to, but I’m a tad more reserved than that, still, I might have hugged him. My volunteer fireman retired teacher neighbor does not use words like mindfulness, presence, or self-care. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t do yoga. But he could surprise me. He plows snow with the same tractor he tills his tidy garden with. As I drove home from town, there he was on the radio, reminding us all that it has been a hard December and January. Bitter cold, five– or is it seven feet of snow? And now this week, pouring rain and those really big winds. It felt like a hurricane (down at the Eldred Rock Lighthouse they peaked at 83 mph.) Avalanches blocked roads, and ferries and flights were canceled. We dug out the buried culverts.

Some places flooded. I am not alone in nursing sore muscles I did not know existed until I used a roof rake to pull the snow off our roof so the  wet load wouldn’t collapse it.

Then there is the unbearable weight of the news. The internet, radio and TV still worked. In addition to the local emergency alerts, the world is on fire. Venezuela. Greenland. Minneapolis. The shock, horror and cruelty. Murder. The President ranting insanely.

This is how Lyle says to deal with heavy weather. Do what you are able to, and give yourself a break when it’s not everything you had on the list. Prioritize. Remember to breathe. Keep a sense of humor and your regular sleep and exercise schedule. Consider laying off the cookies now that the holidays are over. Try to be social even when you have a lot to do. Invite a friend over to help you get your place dug out and then go to his house and help him. That way, he said, the chore is easier, plus you get to have a few hours of fresh air while talking with a friend.

And then, suddenly it seemed, the rain and wind stopped. Feet of snow disappeared. The sun even came out for a day.

The roads opened. The ice melted. Planes are flying and two daughters and four grandchildren are heading this way on the ferry from Juneau right now. There is a swim meet this weekend, the Seahawks on TV, an Arts Council local talent showcase at the Chilkat Center– and home basketball games against Metlakatla. My oldest granddaughter is the captain of the Lady Glacier Bears. She turned sixteen this week. Sixteen! If I’m not careful, I’ll blink and she will be thirty. (And I will be? Don’t even think about it.)  I have got to pay more attention to all that  I love.

So, here I am – torn between saving the world and savoring every moment I have left in it—as E.B. White sort of wrote.

Which is why after I swam this morning, I spent a few a minutes calling all three members of the Alaska Delegation to tell them to investigate and de-arm ICE, signed a World Relief petition asking for the same, basically– (go to worldrelief.org for more information) and finished an obituary for a really good guy— Diz was kind, funny and capable. He volunteered for all sorts of community events. He was almost 78, a Vietnam veteran and member of Haines People for Peace. His big heart failed.

Now it’s time to walk the dogs and tidy up before the kids arrive. I think I’ll order pizza for between the swim meet and games tonight. The young crew at Alpenglow Pizzeria has been open throughout the siege and that’s something to celebrate.

The priest began his Epiphany homily with the old joke: If three wise women had traveled to see the birth of baby Jesus, they would not have needed to follow a star. They would have asked for directions, and they would have arrived on time, no doubt a little early (not 12 days late), cleaned the stable, helped Mary deliver the baby– and brought practical gifts, like casseroles and diapers.

History has been kind to Joseph. The poor Jewish carpenter that cared for Mary and Jesus and out-witted King Herod is a saint, literally. King Herod’s name is synonymous with cruelty and greed. He had a very bad end and was eaten by worms.

I have been thinking a lot about the light of regular good Joes and Marys lately. They are everywhere.

In a friend’s smile as we headed back into the cold after the Seahawks won.

The homes decked with lights to make the nights brighter for all of us.

St. Chip has been raking the snow off our roofs while I have been pointing out the dangers, and the clumps he has missed.

Then there’s the really nice young man who stopped and helped a woman he’d never met dig and push her car out of the berm on Second Avenue this morning, with all that snow and wind pelting him.

Still, I love the snow. I do.

There are so many snowy memories at the end of the holidays, especially on Epiphany. That’s the day when my then young son had an emergency appendectomy in Whitehorse after a harrowing drive through the pass in a blizzard much like today’s. The Canadian medics never even asked for our ID or an insurance card before they sprang into action. I didn’t have time to take off my coat before they rolled the gurney through the swinging doors toward the operating room and saved his life.

I attended a Quaker school and was taught that there is something divine in each of us. One teacher said to imagine a candle flickering inside our hearts. One little birthday-size candle. Then imagine the light from all those little candles in our classroom, the school, the town, the world. But most importantly – never forget that the light of God shines inside every single person you meet.

And in case you think that is a lesson just for children, or if you are worried about fires— you may imagine the gentle power of snowflakes or raindrops instead.

Here is a poem titled Advice from a Raindrop, by Kim Stafford. It is in The Wonder of Small Things: Poems for Peace and Renewal, edited by James Crews.

At least I’ve heard it’s a record, and it sure feels like one. The sun came out yesterday, the north gales continue, and the highs are around 15. The pool opened again this morning, and a few of us were even there.

Heavy snow is forecast for Monday. In the meantime we are digging out and checking on each other.

“One must have a mind of winter…” Wallace Stevens from his poem, The Snow Man

The winter storm warning continues until noon today. It’s still dark and snowing hard. Chip has already shoveled the paths for us and the dogs, and we are waiting for Jack and his loader to open the driveway, again, so Chip can head to the lumberyard and close out the books for 2025, and for the last time. He’s retiring. It’s an ending and a beginning.

There has been a foot of snow since Jack’s last pass, and it’s drifted.

The Juneau kids left on yesterday’s ferry while I was up at the radio station for my weekly country show. I walked over the hill to town, figuring I can get myself anywhere on foot. The police said not to drive on Mud Bay Road, because of drifts, and past the cannery rigs were stuck in a big one.

Lutak Road has avalanched past the ferry.

The Haines Road is closed at the border.

Fireman Al even phoned in his weekly radio Safety Report.

You get the idea—

About noon, near KHNS, I stopped and talked to Richard as he paused from slicing the snow encasing his wife’s car. Richard is a cyclist, so he wasn’t worried about his heart, but he did say this was his workout today, and it was nice to be outside and they didn’t really need the car anyway.He asked me to play Mary Chapin Carpenter’s, I Feel Lucky.

Angie has been staying at the Chilkat Center since the blizzard began, as she couldn’t get back to her home, a few hills and drifts past ours, and Marley skied in.

On the air, it was my turn to play cheerful tunes and let everyone know the latest weather; to give the plow drivers room to work; that essential stores were open and the harbormaster wants boats shoveled. The fire chief asks that hydrants be dug out. The library is open until five, and the senior center van wasn’t running and there was no hot meal, but the doors were open and if you get there, they’ll make you a sandwich.

After the show, I walked to the lumberyard for a ride home from Chip. By 3:30 it was too dark to walk safely.

I am humming I Feel Lucky  now—and will hold onto it for the New Year. Not because I’m foolishly hopeful, or willfully ignorant. (That is not bliss, actually.) Rather, it’s because I know what it means to be unlucky. Following my radio show, Skye came in for hers, and played music in memory of two of her Haines School classmates who died in an avalanche while visiting their families for the holidays a few years ago.

There’s that heartbreaking kind of unlucky, and then there’s the inevitable luck of the draw over who will be here next Christmas, next New Year’s and what changes will happen beyond our hearth and home—

If I choose to see the good luck of things, then hopefully, I will be able to handle the bad luck better.

I am thinking about ways to make that happen, to train, like Richard does—he rides his bike because he loves it. The long summer rides out the highway to the border and back give him the fitness to shovel on short winter days. So what will make my heart stronger? (Well, aside from working out?)

Smiling more, at friends and strangers, on purpose. Introducing myself, watching high school basketball games, reading library books, going out for coffee, swimming at the pool and bathing in the spring in Tenakee. Attending church. Volunteering. Being with my family. Making new friends and paying better attention to the old ones. Walking the dogs. More time with Chip, a lot more. Doing good work.

As Mary Chapin Carpenter also sings— a lucky year may be too much to expect, but it’s not too much to ask. May it be so for all of us.

And here is a poem for New Year’s Eve, From Mary Oliver, Wild Geese.  It’s  popular for a reason.

This is the version in my Good Poems anthology edited by Garrison Keillor.

“Advisory: Heavy drifted snow has made multiple roads impassable. Vehicles are getting stuck. Crews are clearing roads. Travel not advised.” – The Haines Borough Police Department 

There’s  that, and pretty much everything is closed. Since no one should be out, the pool, the clinic, the library, the Borough office, the bank, the lumberyard. It was wonderful to hear Angie and Nate on KHNS so early this morning. Nate said he walked over, and Angie? Maybe she snowboarded? After the news, Nate even played some classical music, Bach, which calmed everyone down. The blizzard is on its third day and more snow is on the way. Like the old days. Like Alaska used to be.  Ridiculous. Epic, and a tad unnerving. As an old Alaskan once said about dog mushing at 50 below:  It’s okay as long as everything is okay. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Meanwhile.. the texts from local family and friends keep pinging: Ferry turned around due to icing…Making chicken soup… Soon I’ll have to go out and check vents…The Borough gave up getting up Young Rd….I’m going to shovel now…. Been at the computer all morning…Good luck! …. It’s even worse than it looks…Yikes our TV just went out… LA Rams game tonight…Maybe you need to shovel the dish?…We have got to dig out our decks and I’m wondering about our roof?… After eating a doz large choc chip cookies for breakfast I’m ready to shovel the whole town…Thank you for contacting me… I have snow plowing scheduled…This weather makes me feel old and incapable…There’s a lot of snow down here on the boat waist high…Time to do Wordl…In case you didn’t know, motion sensor farting ninjas are a real thing… Are you okay over there?… We are just riding it out… This is IMPRESSIVE… Still snowin’…

More snow is forecast for the rest of today, tonight, tomorrow and on through the week. And thank goodness we have no place to go, and the fire is delightful,  my son-in-law is making his family’s special  Italian meatballs and spaghetti for dinner and Henry is fine with cocoa and  Christmas cookies for lunch. It may be time for a Christmas movie. Think the kids will watch While You Were Sleeping with Me?

My favorite Christmas book is actually a long poem by Dylan Thomas, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, A Child’s Christmas in Wales. And with all this snow, and a houseful of children who will remember a snowy Christmas like this one for the rest of their lives, I can’t help love it even more—that line about not remembering if it snowed for six days when he was twelve or twelve days when he was six keeps rolling around in my head–

And the way Dylan’s memory is not the same as reporting, and yet is so specific to a time and place I have never been, but that I know and love and can even feel in my heart– that it is truer somehow– Yes, One Christmas is so much like another in this sea-town, too. I wanted to be sure I shared the book with you, and also, since it is Sunday, that I told you what Al said during the Children’s sermon this morning about snow and shoveling it. (It was a small but hardy band given the blizzard. Jim even skied to church.)

Fireman Al was speaking to the  little kids, all gathered up front by the creche and sitting on the floor with him, but of course the grown-ups listened. He asked the children what they would do if their best friend asked them to help him shovel snow, and they all said they would be happy to ( more or less– even very little children understand that’s what friends are for.)

Next, Al asked if a new neighbor, who had just moved here and who didn’t seem to be prepared for snow at all, and had more snow in their yard than you did, asked you to help them after you had just finished your own shoveling– what you would say?

” Well…” Al thought out-loud….you might not be as keen, but you would help him, right?

And the kids nodded, Yes. They know you are supposed to help the neighbors.

Some of us adults shifted in our seats. Regular church goers, Jesus people, who are still celebrating Christmas, his birthday, the birthday of the Prince of Peace, who told us to love our enemies after all—and everyone—as much as we love ourselves — the poor, refugees and rejected–— could guess what was coming. The hard part of church. The Jesus part.

Al asked the children what they would do if the kid who had bullied them all year at school asked for help? The kids were quiet, maybe a few shook their heads, No. One parent sort of joked that may be a bridge too far (and who doesn’t feel that way when it comes to the treatment of people we love?) One child said that if the bad guy paid him a lot of money he might help.

Al said he understood, paused, and in his slow Texas twang, asked what we thought Jesus would do? Remember what we learned in Sunday school? About Jesus and love? Jesus would help them, wouldn’t he? And he wants us to as well, Al said, so that’s what we do. Shovel snow for anyone who asks us. (And, maybe some that don’t.)

A lot of people will need help shoveling if the Juneau  weather office is correct—we must have three feet now, and 6-10 more inches are forecast for tonight, and tomorrow, and the next night, and the next… and so on… and that is how all Christmases roll into one. I have already forgotten if it even snowed at all last winter.

I am up early, to bake the coffee cakes, like that old Dunkin Donuts commercial, my song is “Time to make the coffee cakes.” The two I made yesterday didn’t work out. They appear flatter than they should be. But, my daughter says they will taste fine. Of course they will. There is enough butter and sour cream in them to feed a family of four for two weeks. I make six for friends and family. It was my mother and her mother’s tradition.

I am listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing carols, and thinking of Barb, a very old ( 95) friend who died this year listening to the same choir. She had five children by the time she was 26, and on Christmas the big treat was pancakes with ground up candy in them. That’s all she had.

And I’m texting my sister in New York. Her husband is recovering from surgery so it’s a quiet Christmas for her. She is thinking about Papa Bob, our father, who died on Christmas Eve in this  house four years ago. I will regret that I cut him off from a second Bloody Mary for the rest of my life. As regrets go, that’s not too bad. I will always be grateful that my Alaskan sister and I cared for him here for his last years. It was, in hindsight, a light burden.

I still have not thrown out his last Clamato can. I just added it to my holiday décor, since last year we mixed some into the memorial cocktails and everyone got sick. I’m guessing it was the clam juice.

But what I want to tell you, is that after I put the cakes in the oven and set the timer for 45 minutes ( they take 55 usually but I really didn’t want to burn them) I ran upstairs and pedaled my bike like crazy. There is a family skating date at 11, and 15 of us (just family) are coming for an early dinner since church is at 7:30, and children need to sleep so Santa will come. My heart is full and beating hard–

To the point: when I came downstairs looking nothing like mother Christmas in my sweaty bike clothes and opened the oven door, the Mormons broke into Hark the Herald Angels and the cakes had risen! I kid you not. The angels of Christmas? Good luck? Proper measuring? Barb?  Papa Bob looking down from the Clamato can?

It feels like Love and I’ll take it. The Love, that as the hymn goes, comes down at Christmas.

Papa Bob was a Rite One Episcopalian and a King James kind of guy. I still prefer the music of the old words too, especially at Christmas.

I memorized Luke’s Christmas gospel when I was a little kid after hearing Linus recite it on the Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon, and it is still what Christmas is all about—

May you and yours feel the love, too.

Christmas Story

King James Version, Luke , Chapter 2, verses 1-14

2 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.