New Year Invitation

 

May the unconditional and unceasing and unexpected love of God, born in a barn and laid in a feeding trough, be with you.  May the peace of Christ who let loose the light of grace and shattered the gospels of domination, revenge, purification, and pain surround you.  May the creative and conducting Spirit swirl within you in ways that awaken you to the holy every day this year.

 

I invite you this week to pray with your calendar from 2023 before you throw/toss it into the recycling bin.  Before you move on to, “New Year, New Me” mantas and resolutions and clean slates of 2024, it is good to pause.  Breathe in with me and slowly exhale.  As you settle in, I want to invite you to do a year-in-review with me. 

 

You will need a piece of paper as I believe there is something tactile and tangible about writing down moments from this last year.  You will also need to have your calendar from 2023.  Going week-by-week, I invite you to review the appointments, experiences, and encounters.  For example, I look back at January and notice funerals, meals shared, and meetings.  I notice pastoral visits and times with friends.  I see volunteer experiences and birthday parties.  As I continue through the months I note my daughter’s graduation, weddings I performed, and vacations taken.  I notice our sanctuary renovation project and bible studies held.  Then, there are these ordinary days tucked between the mountain moments and valley times when the calendar was more open.  Rewind, review, and remember what left an imprint upon your soul last year.  Name and notice the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Hold all of it because God holds all of it.

 

There is a great line from the musical Rent, Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?

 

How do you measure a life?  How do you measure your life, because the truth is there is no universal metric system for meaning in your life.  What is meaningful to you, a mountain top moment, may leave another person glancing at her watch wondering, “What’s for lunch?”.  We are all beautifully and uniquely created in God’s image.  And, therein lies the tension because we want people to agree and affirm and accept us.  If I think taking photos in Sedona was amazing and life giving.  But when you hear Sedona your first response was “Meh”…then I feel defensive.  On behalf of the good citizens of this corner of God’s earth I may mount a defense of why you are wrong, which may make you wonder, “Why is he so passionate about a place he doesn’t live?”  I am not asking you to defend, but to hold lightly.  I am not asking you to grade your last year, but to look back with hindsight and insight and foresight ~ the truth is just because you put up a new calendar today doesn’t mean we leave all 2023 behind.  Often the past does impact the present.  Hold your life today for the unfathomable mystery and marvel it is.  Write down what stirred your soul, what drained your soul, and those beautiful ordinary moments that at the time you might have missed.  Then, come back tomorrow and we will continue to lean in and listen to our lives.

God of every day of 2023, on this first day of 2024, open us to how You are still moving and mixing and mingling in our lives every day.  Let the coming year be filled with Your hope, peace, joy, and love that continues to light our way in these days after Christmas.  Amen.