Christmas and New Year’s have passed, Three Kings Day is upon us and, in New Orleans where my younger child lives, parade season will be starting shortly, leading up to Mardi Gras.  The media is filled with ads about fitness, diets, New Year’s resolutions and the like, and we look forward to the ‘second half’ of the church year which will including planning for the start of the capital campaign, continuing with the search for a settled Director of Religious Education and settled Director of Music, and hope that this new year brings a greater sense of justice and equity to our society.

In the middle of all these wishes and resolutions and hopes – some of which are bound to go unfulfilled because we are, after all, human – perhaps we can aspire to making each day the best it can be, for us and for those we love and call into our circle of connection.  Perhaps, in the beauty and isolation that comes with cold and winter, we can be more in touch with those things that we hold within ourselves which are gifts that can be shared with the world and that will be a blessing for others.

In the spirit of this new year, I lift up the words of Fra Giovanni for us all:

There is nothing I can give you which you have not, but there is much that, while I cannot give, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take Heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant. Take Peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take Joy.

And so…I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

With blessings and hope for this new year,
Faithfully,

Deb

Deborah Weiner, Interim Director of Religious Education