January Twenty-Eighteen

January Twenty-Eighteen

This is one of my favorite times of the year because I get to take up a new calendar and mark it up. The slate is filling up already. Meetings set and travel scheduled, work days inked in and some weekend plans made, holidays and holy days marked. Some of what is in the list is work, some of it offering, some of it sacrifice. Some of it I anticipate, some of it I dread. All of it makes up my offering — an offering of life and labor, as the old prayer book calls such things.  May your lists be blessed, and helped and strengthened by the Holy One.

–Robert Benson

May we faithfully persevere through all the trials ahead this year and may we rejoice in joy and in suffering knowing we are in the midst of a great story that God will bring to fruition.

-from Annie Lillard's Christmas letter 

Yet for most at least, there is an acknowledgement of a new year, despite its artifice… it is, after all, just the creation of another number. We take the opportunity to bid good riddance to a year that was grimly tragic or to regret with melancholy the end of one full of promise. A few make resolutions they will actually keep, or use the opportunity to take stock and at least dream about changes. Somehow we believe that a new year can wipe out the past, despite the fact we carry all we have been and done into the new year, in memory if not in repercussions. Perhaps this longing points to a deeper desire….to really clean the slate and find a new start. To be free from the shackles of guilt, the tentacles of disappointment in ourselves which drag us drowning in a morass of self-despair as we fail again to live up to our expectations of ourselves, or the (often falsely assumed) expectations of others.

A longing, in fact, for exactly what God offers. Fresh start. No conditions. Not just one day, but 365. Good news, whatever the date  -Jeannie Kendall 

The season of Epiphany extends from January 6 until Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.  My friend Robert Benson wrote this:   

"Now the season of looking for Him everywhere is upon us — the season of Epiphany is what they call it.  Heads up. Keep your eyes and ears and hands open. He is everywhere, and He moves in pretty surprising ways. You do not want to miss Him." 

As we observe Epiphany, we celebrate the journey to the manger and the showing forth of God in unexpected places. - Transforming Center 

Student Driver

“ Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?” “I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.” –Voyage of the Dawn Treader 

Why is it so hard to believe that God intends our children to train us just as much as he intends us to train and guide our children? Why is it so inconceivable that God would design a child to be the best qualified human to thwart and shatter a parent’s arrogance and self-righteousness? And why don’t we put this responsibility to learn on par with the parent’s responsibility to rightly shape the hearts and minds of a child? –Dan Allender

Lord, let us walk into this day, Your light before us,
Your shield behind us, Your friends beside us.

Lord, let us walk into this week, Your life before us,
Your strength behind us, Your love around us.....

Lord, let us walk from this place, Your wisdom before us,
Your truth behind us, Your breath within us.

Lord, let us walk into the world, Gratitude in our hearts,
Thanksgiving on our lips, Joy in our spirits.

Lord, let us walk into your loving presence, In the name of the One who loves us,

In the name of the One who cares, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.