Beginning again

As another year begins, I'd like to honor the lives and legacy of two great men who embodied the spirit of peace and humanitarian work.

- DOROTHY DELGADO NOVICIO

Their voices are profoundly echoed in a book I reread as I occasionally retreated from the noise of the holiday festivities.

Former US president Jimmy Carter passed away three days before 2025 ushered in, while Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary General of the United Nations, died 63 years ago. President Carter died peacefully, while on hospice care at a very ripe age of 100, while Mr. Hammarskjold died young at 56 in what was described as a "mysterious death" following a plane crash en route to a peace mission.

"Markings" is a collection of the former UN Sec Gen's writings, poems and meditations in the form of a personal journal. In 1964, three years after his death, the compendium, which he called "a sort of white book concerning my negotiations with myself - and with God," was published into a book. My copy, a 2006 edition, bears the profoundly penned preface of President Carter, who acclaimed Mr. Hammarskjold's public life as a "testament to his commitment to serve others, to work for peace and justice." Now labeled as a spiritual classic, The New York Times describes it as "perhaps the greatest testament of personal devotion published in this century."