Christmas is a wonderful time of year for friends and family. I hope that you take a moment to reflect on the past year and think of the new year to come.

Let me leave you with a wonderful passage from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1:

“The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown; His scepter shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptered sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s, when mercy seasons justice.”

Wm. Shakespeare (1554-1616)