Happy New Year! Thank you for visiting BerggrenFolk. This is the time of year for resolving to do worthwhile things, to start doing this or stop doing that; so I've called upon a few literary favorites for help. My Robert Frost inspired resolution is to: "Entertain great hopes."

Do you have some great hopes? Barbara Kingsolver says: "The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof."

Saint Augustine talked about the dynamics of hope in a rather poetic way, one that explains what it is and what it takes to persevere. "Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be."

Whatever your hopes, global or personal, spiritual or poltical, remember Thomas Jefferson's advice: "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."