New Year's Eve

 

The first Watch Night was Dec. 31, 1862, as abolitionists and others waited for word — via telegraph, newspaper or word of mouth — that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued. Now, 159 years later, we still wait, watch, wonder what word 2022 will bring. Will the word that greets us tomorrow be one of hope? Peace? Joy? Love? Will the words of hurt and harm; wounds and wants still roam within us and around us? Will words point toward a new beginning or will perplexing past problems still linger? Will there be the promise of a new day or leftovers from yesterday?

In a word..."Yes"

In honor of our history of watching, I invite you into that prayer posture right now. As a New Year dawns at the stroke of midnight 2022 will arrive; we will cross the threshold. So, my dear readers, a prayer for you. A prayer for our coming 365 years. A prayer for you to be enfolded and held close by God.

God of all seasons ~ summer moments of joy to wintering moments of discontent and dis-ease to in-between and in the meantime moments ~ we bring our whole selves to this threshold of one year fading into another.

We carry with us concerns about the new variant of the virus; our weariness and worn out-ness at how this invisible illness has causes such pain in our world. We carry grief of friends who died this last year and family whose finger prints are forever on our hearts. We carry our own disappointments with ourselves and others.

And...and we carry moments when we could connect with family and the feeling of a hug after months of being apart. We carry moments of laughter and how holy last Friday felt singing Silent Night together.

And...and we carry hope for 2022. We know there is much work to be done before us. Like our abolitionist ancestors we realize and recognize one decree or law won't change everything. Yet, we know that as long as we have breath on earth we long to be caught up in Your symphony of love You are composing and conducting and creating even here and now.

We offer our prayers to You, O God.

Prayers for ourselves ~ name your prayers aloud.

Prayers for family and friends ~ name the people in your heart aloud.

Prayers for our church and community ~ give voice to your deep prayers for what might be in the face of what is.

Prayers for our country and world.

Prayers for our ancestors who passed away this last year.

Prayers for what might be as we awake, awake and greet the new morn on January 1, 2022.

God, take our life ~ take my life~ and let us be;

Blessed to be a light in this community;

Take every moment and each day;

To play my part in Your symphony.

With deep love for God's grace and peace to be with you today, today, and tomorrow as we watch, wait, and lean in to what God is up to in our world right now. Amen.

New Year's Eve...Eve

 

It is New Year’s Eve…Eve.  Two more days left in 2021.

 

I heard you just say, “Good riddance.”  I heard you say, “About time.”  I am over this year too.  I ready for a New Year as much as anyone. 

 

Yet, too often the New Year can feel a lot like the Old Year.  Just because we put up a new calendar, doesn’t mean everything is suddenly amazing.  We may try to make resolutions and will ourselves to live a new way, but the ruts and routines of our lives are well-worn and established.  Today, I want to invite you to remember an invitation from Jon Acuff:

 

Forgive your former self.

Enjoy your present self.

Be kind to your future self.

 

Is there anything you need to let go of from 2021?  Pain or anger at a person who will never say, “Sorry”?  Have you been living in a way over the last two years that has left you drained and depleted?  I want to leave behind in 2021 the daily meetings in my mind between fear, anxiety, stress and strain that they demand I attend…and bring them all donuts.  I am not even all that fond of donuts. What might need to be forgiven today for yourself and for the sake of your self in 2022?  Remembering ~ forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, but it does mean that the hurt doesn’t hold the steering wheel of your life either.

 

How might you enjoy your present self?  I love the invitation to enjoy my-today-self.  Not that awesome version of yourself that you think by the end of January when you will have lost twenty pounds, have connected with God in ways that cause you to levitate, repaired all broken relationships, and solved world peace.  I mean, leave something for February!!  Enjoy your less-than-perfect ~~ YET still made in God’s image self today.  Start that as a prayer practice for every day in 2022.

 

Finally, be kind to your future self.  I do this by getting rest, exercise, reading, eating good food, being compassionate toward myself so that care and love can flow from me.

 

What do you need to forgive?

How can you enjoy yourself/others/God in this new day?

How can you be kind so that tomorrow, and every tomorrow in 2022, can be a new day?

 

May those questions sit and sing out melody to you this day.  Amen.

Christmas Week take Three

 

Today, I invite us to return to the poetry prayer of John 1:1-14 from the Voice translation:

 

Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking.

    The Voice was and is God.
² This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator;
³     His speech shaped the entire cosmos.
Immersed in the practice of creating,
    all things that exist were birthed in Him.
⁴ His breath filled all things
    with a living, breathing light—
⁵ A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,
    blazes through murky bottoms.
It cannot and will not be quenched.

⁶ A man named John, who was sent by God, was the first to clearly articulate the source of this Light. ⁷ This baptizer put in plain words the elusive mystery of the Divine Light so all might believe through him. Some wondered whether he might be the Light, ⁸ but John was not the Light. He merely pointed to the Light. ⁹ The true Light, who shines upon the heart of everyone, was coming into the cosmos.¹⁰ He entered our world, a world He made; yet the world did not recognize Him. ¹¹ Even though He came to His own people, they refused to listen and receive Him. ¹² But for all who did receive and trust in Him, He gave them the right to be reborn as children of God; ¹³ He bestowed this birthright not by human power or initiative but by God’s will.

¹⁴ The Voice took on flesh and became human and chose to live alongside us. We have seen Him, enveloped in undeniable splendor—the one true Son of the Father—evidenced in the perfect balance of grace and truth.

 

Where do you sense God’s voice guiding you?  In whom do you often to hear God’s voice?  Where might the light be leading you in these dwindling December days?  May these questions and so many more awaken hope, surround you with peace, fill you with love, and enfold/hold you in love.  Amen.

Christmas Week take Two

 

I pray you found joy/laughter/hope/peace/love in Billy Collins’ poem from yesterday.  You may want to re-read that poem prayer today and every day for the coming weeks.  You can return to poetry time and time again (like Scripture) always finding something new, because YOU are different every time you read a poem.

 

Today, I invite you to turn toward the poem, “December Morning in the Desert,” by Alberto Ríos.

 

Before you read the poem below, have you ever been to the desert?  What was the experience like?  My family and I visited the desert in the middle of summer.  It was hot and dry.  I suddenly knew what it was like to be a shirt twirling and tumbling in the dryer.  I never knew how heat could just wrap around you like a blanket and the sun unceasingly soak everything all around. 

 

Even if you have never been to the desert, let Rios take us there with these words:

 

“The morning is clouded and the birds are hunched,
More cold than hungry, more numb than loud,

This crisp, Arizona shore, where desert meets
The coming edge of the winter world.

It is a cold news in stark announcement,
The myriad stars making bright the black,

As if the sky itself had been snowed upon.
But the stars—all those stars,

Where does the sure noise of their hard work go?
These plugs sparking the motor of an otherwise quiet sky,

Their flickering work everywhere in a white vastness:
We should hear the stars as a great roar

Gathered from the moving of their billion parts, this great
Hot rod skid of the Milky Way across the asphalt night,

The assembled, moving glints and far-floating embers
Risen from the hearth-fires of so many other worlds.

Where does the noise of it all go
If not into the ears, then hearts of the birds all around us,

Their hearts beating so fast and their equally fast
Wings and high songs,

And the bees, too, with their lumbering hum,
And the wasps and moths, the bats, the dragonflies—

None of them sure if any of this is going to work,
This universe—we humans oblivious,

Drinking coffee, not quite awake, calm and moving
Into the slippers of our Monday mornings,

Shivering because, we think,
It’s a little cold out there.”

 

I love how this poem draws our attention to the vastness of life and the ordinary of slippers on our Monday mornings.  I love how Rios connects humans to the variety of creation.  I pray this poem opens you to God’s presence on this day.  Amen.

Christmas Week take One

 

During this season of Christmas, we want to share two poems with you to stir your hearts and sit in your souls.  Poetry asks us to slow down.  You cannot rush or race your way through a poem.  Unlike a refrigerator repair manual, there is no step-by-step guide in a poem.  There is no “correct” answer to a poem.  There is only the experience of the poem.  Today, I invite you to read Billy Collins Questions About Angels.

 

Before you even read the poem, what questions do you have about angels?  If you had a chance to interview the herald angels at Jesus’ birth, what might you ask?  What have you always wondered about these messengers of God?  That is what “angel” means – a messenger.  I wonder what songs the angels sang to the shepherd?  I wonder did they sing acapella or play an instrument?  I wonder if you have ever heard an angel sing?  What messages would you like to receive right now from God?  I know I have a thousand questions I would like God to text me about concerning the virus, how we treat each other, how to share Christ’s love, who will win the Super Bowl, how should I lead a church right now when there is a thick fog over everything we seem to do and normal isn’t anywhere in sight?  And those are the questions just off the top of my head.

 

What questions do you have for the divine dancing within you? 

 

Then, slowly read the following poem.  You may wish to read the words aloud.

 

Of all the questions you might want to ask

about angels, the only one you ever hear

is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

 

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time

besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin

or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth

or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

 

Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?

Do they swing like children from the hinges

of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?

Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?

 

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,

their diet of unfiltered divine light?

What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall

these tall presences can look over and see hell?

 

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole

in a river and would the hole float along endlessly

filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?

 

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive

in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume

the appearance of the regular mailman and

whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

 

No, the medieval theologians control the court.

The only question you ever hear is about

the little dance floor on the head of a pin

where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

 

It is designed to make us think in millions,

billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse

into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:

one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,

a small jazz combo working in the background.

 

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful

eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over

to glance at his watch because she has been dancing

forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

 

May the poem/prayer above continue to help you celebrate the mystery of Christ’s birth every day this week.  Amen.

Love is Born Tonight

 

We’ve arrived at Bethlehem.  We have once again made our way to the stable where hope, peace, joy, and love culminate and come together in human form overflowing with the Divine.  God enters our world tonight to awake our awareness of the original goodness for all creation, God’s prayerful plea and purpose for life.  We are on the cusp of proclaiming good news of great joy for all the world.

 

I pray you will join in one of our Christmas Eve services.

 

5 pm is outdoors and will feature: Betsy Traba (flute) and Fernado Traba (bassoon).  Greg will lead us in singing for all Sarasota to hear.  Preludes start at 4:45 pm and we will sing Silent Night as the sun is setting…BEAUTIFUL!!

 

8 pm is in the sanctuary AND online.  Meghan Jones (violin) and Natalie Helm (cello), along side our amazing choir will once again soak the walls of our sanctuary with the sacredness of this night.  Preludes start at 7:45 pm and children will process the Creche/manger scene.  We will share the light of Christ and sing, Silent Night.

 

Fellowship time hosted by COLLAGE.  You are welcome to stay after 8 pm or come early for the 11 pm service.

 

11 pm is in the sanctuary featuring communion and our voices singing carols to the glory of God.  We will close the service going out into Sarasota singing, Silent Night.

 

All services, I pray will help you remember YOU are God’s beloved.  Within you there are flames of hope, peace, joy, and love that the world needs today.  We will be drenched in candlelight at all services singing, “Silent Night”.  For onto YOU…yes you…a child is born.  Onto YOU…yes you…God’s love enters our lives tonight.  Onto You…yes you…your soul feels its worth on this night.  See you at one of the services.  Amen.

Love Part Four

 

It is Christmas Eve Eve…which I know is not a holiday, but maybe should be?  I pray yesterday you engaged prayerfully in a moment to prepare for God’s entry into the world. Whether yesterday you engaged in an activity or sat silently and listened to music or feasted on a food that tasted like “childhood”. 

Today…do it again.

Some people are thinking, “Wait, isn’t this devotional supposed to be different every day?” 

I think sometimes in the midst of our calendars being too full, we believe that one moment to intentionally prepare our hearts for the mystery of Christ’s birth should be enough.  But my soul needs more space.  My heart needs more room to raise a hand and suggest another way to make today a holy day so that tomorrow might sing to my life in a new way.

Pause this morning and ponder the ways you might move about the hours before you.  I invite you to be intentional.  I realize you may have tasks that need to be done on your to-do list.  Family might be arriving…presents need to be wrapped…and you may still need to go to the grocery store. 

Perhaps today isn’t about adding one more thing, but being thoughtful about how you go about what how you move about today.

Can you prepare the breakfast casserole for Christmas morning while mixing in love?

Can you share peace with others when you are in the store, looking the cashier in the eyes?

Can you be open to joy as you go about the things you need to do?

How might this day have hope woven into each moment?

Whether you choose to add an activity intentionally or intentionally go about the activities you have…I pray for God’s presence, Emmanuel, to enfold and hold you.  One more day until the most meaningful night of the Christian calendar.  May today be a beautiful day to encounter the Eternal each second.  Amen.

Love Part Three

 

I pray yesterday you found ways to sit in the holy darkness sensing God’s love enfolding and hold you.  I pray you found ways for the candle of Love to guide you on the longest night.  I invite you today to ask yourself,

“What is one way I can clear away the clutter for the Christ-child and God to enter into my heart anew and afresh on Friday?” 

 

I know that is a big question.  I appreciate if suddenly you feel like a child who didn’t study for the test and are thinking, “Um, I don’t really know.”  Yet, I encourage you to sit with this question for awhile.  You don’t need to come up with the absolutely most perfect answer ever.  I am asking for one way your shy soul is suggesting you might engage prayerfully and intention between now and Friday.

 

You might clear away the clutter by sitting silently listening for God.

You might blast and blare carols, joining your voice in singing out Joy to the World.

You might bake some sweet treat you can remember your grandmother making on the days before Christmas.  By the way, I always remember my grandmother would make a candy called, “Divinity” which was essentially one full bag of sugar, a few eggs, and light corn syrup (just in case the bag of sugar wasn’t sweet enough.  Plus, it was “light”, so it’s healthy right?).  Alongside the fudge my grandmother would make, it is a wonder sometimes that I still have teeth left. 

 

I digress.

 

I want you, dear reader, to know that you don’t have to be Super Spiritual Woman or Man somehow creating what will be the best Christmas ever.  You don’t need to have the most absolute awesomest Christmas.  Be open, be heartfelt, and how God is singing to you now.

 

I want you to listen to what your soul needs before Christmas Eve.

I want you to create intentional space for the Sacred.

I want you to have permission to do something that helps your heart feel strangely warmed or grow three sizes like the Grinch.

 

As a matter of fact, I think today I am going to watch two of my favorite classic cartoons from my childhood: “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (Linus telling the Christmas Story opens my heart every time.)  And then follow that with, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”.  You gotta love the song, “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch.”  And you are going to be singing that all day long now.  You are welcome.

 

Tend to what your life needs this day as we inch closer to the holiest night of the Christian year.

Love Part Two

 

Today is the longest night and shortest day of the year.  Because we live in a world of artificial light that can instantly scatter the darkness with the flick of a switch, we may not always notice how darkness has arrived earlier each day.  Our ancestors, however, who lived closer to the land and did not have modern gadgets, paid more attention to the sun setting earlier and the stars sticking around longer each day.  One scholar suggests that Solstice celebrations go back 30,000 years.  You may know that Stonehenge is designed to receive the first rays of midwinter sun.  See how much you learn reading these morning meditations?  Other ways to honor this day include bonfires or turning on only your Christmas tree with Christmas carols filling your house as are soaked and saturated in the light. 

 

Another suggestion is to read the Gospel of John’s prologue/poem/prayer found in chapter 1.  John tells us that in the beginning, the Word (Wisdom or Creativity or Knowledge) was with God and was God.  The two were inseparable.  The two collaborated and conspired and cooperated to craft all that is seen and unseen.  Without the Word, Creation would not have sprung forth.  The Word is woven into everything, including you, me, the lizard that just ran across my window, the blade of grass, the bear hibernating and the hummingbird searching for food.  The Word was expansive, inclusive, and imprinted all with the Eternal.  The Word is a light.  I love how John says the light shines in the darkness…and the darkness did not and will not ever overcome the true Light of God.

 

Tonight, when the sun sets, I invite you honor this holy threshold moment.  You can join us for our Longest Night Service at 6:30 pm on Zoom.  You can turn off all the lights in your house, light ONE candle of LOVE, consider the ways darkness often seems like it has the upper hand in our lives and world.  And prayerfully ponder where one sliver of light might be showing you the way this week and in the weeks of the New Year. 

 

I encourage you today to pay attention to the light and darkness.  Where are places where nighttime has settled in?  This could be an activity you needed to stop because of COVID or a relationship that is no longer as vibrant or maybe physically or emotionally or spiritually you are slowing down.  Notice the nighttime moments in your personal life.  I know we often want to quickly jump to what is wrong ‘out there’ but I invite you to also pay attention to what is unsettled ‘in here’ within you.  May you in naming, noticing the shadows also realize God’s love came at night.  God’s love burst and broke into our world not when the sun was blazing, but the stars shinning.  Let God’s nighttime love meet you in this moment on this longest day.  Amen.

Love Part One

 

Yesterday in church we lit the candle of “Love”.  Now all four candles of Advent (hope, peace, joy, and love) are burning brightly.  Now all four candles are pointing the way to where God’s pure light pours forth from a stable on Christmas Eve.  Now the candles help us name and notice what we are searching for in our lives.

 

I long for hope to hold me.

I long for peace to take up permanent residence in my soul.

I long for joy to be shared in serendipitous ways.

I long for love that reminds me who and whose I am.

 

God’s grand entry into our world was in a barn.  Imagine that.  Not a palace or some posh hotel, but a drafty, dirty, dusty stable with animals hovering and hanging around.  The only place for God was a manger – a feeding trough for those animals.  God called Mary to be brave and bold, even though her marriage covenant was not fulfilled.  God called Joseph to go against the grain of societal norms that said he could walk away from Mary; instead, he stood by her.  God decided that shepherds were the public relations firm that could be share the good news of great joy.  Shepherds who were on the lowest of the low rung of the economic and social ladder.  God comes not with might or majesty or military, but as a vulnerable baby.

 

If you are not scratching and shaking your head, please re-read the above paragraph.  If what you just read doesn’t cause your brain to feel flummoxed and full of questions, do not pass go or collect $200.  Re-read.  Sit with the mystery and marvel of the Christmas narrative we will enter on Friday night. 

 

The greatest mystery is that God is not distant or disinterested or disconnected from human life; God enters human life.  This was not how many religions operated in Jesus’ day…and perhaps still seems different from how the church works.  God enters human life with all its brokenness and beauty.  Emmanuel means, “God with us.”  The “us” here is all creation ~ from the tiniest creepy, crawling ant to the largest sea creature.  From the soil beneath us and the stars above us.  On Friday, we celebrate God in the flesh.  This claim was, perhaps still is, controversial.  What we are preparing to celebrate changes the world, and changes our world, our story, our whole lives, and how we go about living today.

 

Sit with me in the holy mystery of what we await to welcome at the end of this week.  Let the story of God entering this world interrupt and infuse your life this day and this week. 

 

How might God hovering in your life awaken hope?

How might God’s presence make space for peace?

How might God’s joy feed and fuel your life?

How might God’s unconditional and unceasing love show up when you open up?

 

May your prayerful pondering on this day clear out clutter for the Christ-child to enter anew and afresh this week.  Amen.

Joy Part Five

 

This week we’ve been speaking about joy;

Planning, plotting, playing, and creating a ploy;

Seeing the beauty in life like a child with a toy;

Trying to cultivate delight rather than being coy.

 

And yet, if we are honest, sometimes joy annoys.

We are befuddled by this word, not knowing how to deploy.

Unsure that our ways or thoughts or actions really employ.

And we are suspicious that sometimes the joy is a decoy.

 

So inside we let our inner Scrooge or Grinch destroy.

We find ways to defer or deflect; rather than enjoy.

Or we think that joy is not the real McCoy.

Or maybe it will be better if we all move to Illinois.

 

(Seriously, who knew that “joy” was so hard to find words that rhyme?!?)

 

It is my prayer that my amateur poetry today brought you joy, made you laugh, or think, “Don’t quit your day job!” Or maybe the words above awoke your inner Dr. Suess to improve on my effort.  Most of all, I pray for joy to surround you, sustain you, feed and fuel you as we continue to make our way toward Bethlehem and where joy is discovered in a dirty, drafty stable.  Because if God can find joy in that place, surely you and I might be able to do the same here and now.  Amen.

Joy Part Four

 

Videos of dogs…or cats…or comedians…or old sitcoms from your youth…or bad jokes like this one:

 

Three people are stuck on an island. One day, the three of them are walking along the beach and discover a magic lamp. They rub and rub, and sure enough, out pops a genie.

The genie says: “Since I can only grant three wishes, you may each have one.”

The first says: “I’ve been stuck here for years. I miss my family, my husband, and my life. I just want to go home.” Poof, he’s gone!

Then the second says: “I’ve been stuck here for years as well. I miss my family, my husband, and my life. I wish I could go home too.” Poof, she’s gone!

The third man starts crying uncontrollably. The genie asks: “My dear, what’s the matter?”

The man whimpers: “I miss my two friends who just left, I wish they were still here.”

 

I’ll wait while you laugh…or groan…or both.

 

Today, I want to encourage you to keep tending and turning toward that which brings you joy.  Each day if we would do one act that brings us joy, what a difference that might make.  What if, rather than using “joy” as a reward, you start with joy.  What if you started the day with what brings a smile to your face, warms your heart, and stirs your soul.  As one author put it in the title of his book, “Eat Dessert First.”  Or sing out loud.  Or sit silently in the shade of a tree. 

 

If we do not cultivate and create space for joy, the voices of the world ~ the demands of our inner and our outer voices ~ will keep telling us to defer or delay our joy.  Yet, joy is here.  Joy is not a destination; joy is the way we can choose to go.  May you seek out joy and discover joy was right beside you all along.

Joy Part Three

 

A few weeks ago, in worship, we sang, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”  This ancient Advent hymn is one our ancestors have sung for years.  And if you listen to the words, it has a wonderful tension built and baked into it.  The words name and notice all the brokenness – the sharp shards of life that can wound us – the hurts and harms.  The hymn sings out about exile, loneliness, pain, envy, strife and quarrels. 

 

You sing it and think, “Thanks for this uplifting thought, Eeyore.” 

 

But the refrain comes out of nowhere and we sing, “Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

 

Um, what?  The hymn just described and defined all the good reasons why joy was distant and disconnected from our lives.  And now, we are supposed to rejoice?  Just like that?  What about all that stuff we just sang about pain and grief??

 

More importantly, how?  How can I be joy-filled when there is sorrow and separation and discrimination and pain that throbs and hearts that are broken?

 

Part of the reason why we struggle with joy is that we believe joy is exuberance or excitement or enthusiasm.  Joy as the life of the party.  Joy is the glass is half-full perspective. 

 

What if joy has a shy and silent side?  What if joy has a reserved and reverent side?  What if joy has a courageous side?  Or as one author says, “Rejoice -means to be in a rut of joy.”  This rut doesn’t mean we are always singing “The Sun will come out tomorrow.”  But we also hold softly that brokenness is never the last word.  It is knowing that more than the glass being half full or half empty, the glass can be refilled by God!! (Please re-read that)

 

We start Advent with the candle of “Hope” because this light will illuminate the places and people where God is still at work.  Hope will doggedly keep shining and searching and sharing that God isn’t finished yet.  We move to “Peace”, or shalom, well-being for all the world.  Hope and peace work together in tandem.  Hope says one step, Peace says in this direction.  Hope says God is here, Peace proclaims God is healing.  Hope nudges and Peace nourishes.  Joy comes alongside and sings, “Yes, this is true and can be trusted and needs to be shared.”  Joy invites others to be on the journey.  When these three: hope, peace, and joy throw a party or invite you on a journey, I encourage you to say, “Yes”.  Along the way, we will tend to the aches and pains.  We will notice the color purple out in the field (thank you to poet/prophetess Alice Walker).  We will laugh and cry and sometimes walk silently just being/breathing together.  That is what faith is; what the church is called to; our ministry and mission. 

 

We can take breaks along the way to rejoice, to remember the rut of joy, that can feed and fuel our lives now and every day in the coming year.  Alleluia and Amen.