City of Longwood (FL) Commission Meeting
21 December 2015
Jocelyn Williamson (263 words - 1:22)

Thank you Mayor, Commission Members, Staff, and community members for the opportunity to offer opening words for tonight’s meeting.

This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, moments of tension, of frustration, and ideological division. This is also a room where we come to work together and where we have much more in common than we realize or remember during our discourse. And we all share the same potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love…

On this eve of the Winter Solstice, the year’s darkest day, let’s take a moment to reflect on a few examples of   what we have to be thankful for. We have a safe city thanks to our hardworking police, firefighters, and paramedics looking out for our health and our security. We have children who are learning and growing because of our wonderful teachers who dedicate themselves to a brighter future. And we have a city that thrives because this commission and the city staff are dedicated to working together with the community.

Carl Sagan once wrote, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”

There is, in the political process, much to bear. In this room tonight, let us cherish and celebrate our shared humanness, our common capacity for reason and compassion and our love for Longwood and its place in Central Florida.

No matter why or how you celebrate the change of season may you, your family, and friends be filled with hope for a bright future, and love for your neighbor.