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On this day in 1963, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space and underwater.

A very important event at the time, it did not stop a number of other nations, including some very aggressive ones, from developing a nuclear weapon. We live in an imperfect world and we must make the best of it. Setbacks happen often and great achievements take time that is why faith and hope are so important. We must never cease to believe that the power for good that exists in the world is far stronger than the power for evil. “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope,” (Reinhold Niebuhr). We should never cease to hope, however black the world may seem.

Today’s poem is by Emily Dickinson, the strange and reclusive New Englander, who died in 1886 and is now considered one of the greatest American poets:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

I ask today that I will never lose hope. I pray that my faith in the essential power for good in the world will grow stronger.