… and what will you do with your life?
What does it mean to be human and what will you do with your life?
Now that’s a big title and those are big questions.
It is, I believe, divine to dream, to envision, to want something more, something beautiful, good and loving.
It is human to find limits to what we want. We find limits in ourselves, in others, in circumstances.
We live in this balance….dealing with what happens, with the limitations we meet, while believing what we want is possible and moving toward the possibilities.
What we do with our lives is increase the odds on making what we want possible.
This month of January is named for the Roman god Janus. Janus has two faces, one turns to the front and one to the back –one face looks to the past and one looks toward the future. Janus carries the keys to close the door on the old year and to open the door to the new. Janus is a god of endings and beginnings.
Here we are on the first Sunday of January. One year ends and another just begins. Before Janus locks the door to the old year, it’s good to reflect on 2013.
January provides an arbitrary ending and starting point to look at ourselves, our dreams, our shortcomings and our possibilities.
We look back and recognize, perhaps honor, the struggles we’ve had over the past twelve months.
We can see how we are different from or the same as last year, probably some of both.
Maybe from the last year’s experiences we have come to new understandings of ourselves and of others.
As the new year begins, we can let dreams and possibilities arise.
This is a holy time, a time when we pause, reflect, ponder, and imagine.
If you haven’t already done so, find some quiet time to reflect on 2013. There is still time to remember and learn from it, to honor and appreciate the year.
For many years, our family created a time capsule of the year gone by. We filled a cookie tin with objects and photos from the year.
This year our son Ben came home for the holidays. He took down from the shelf a couple of our old time capsules and we looked inside.
Our 1996 time capsule includes photos that marked our move from Utah to California. There is a photo of the home to which we said goodbye and one of our new home here. There is a photo of the church building of the congregation we served in Salt Lake City and one of this Berkeley church.
The time capsule holds a copy of the order of service when the two of us ended our ministry with our Salt Lake City congregation. Our last Sunday service together was a celebration led by the lay leaders, appreciating what had been. The service was called, “Exultation, Exhalation and Exstallation.” The good ending with that congregation allowed for a good beginning for our installation as ministers of this congregation.
Honoring and appreciating, ending a year makes for a good beginning of the next.
What would you honor and appreciate about this last year in this church community? If we were to create a UUCB time capsule for 2013, we would include photos of Amy Moses-Lagos, Sheri Prud’homme and Marcus Liefert who served the congregation so lovingly as family minister, consulting minister, and intern minister.
We’d include a photo of Merrin Clough who began as Director of Family Ministry. How about a photo of her and some of the youth as they blessed the truck full of your gifts of canned goods and food for the Richmond pantry?
We’d include photos of former organist Ron Swedlund and the organ re-leathering project. We’d have a picture of the Organist Search Committee and the joyful announcement of the new organist Katiya Kolesnikova.
The 2013 UUCB time capsule would have copies of the programs for both Sue Magidson’s and Aija Simpson’s ordinations by this congregation to UU ministry.
We would add materials on CCISCO, the interfaith community organization with whom we have been connecting.
The capsule would include the Capital Campaign brochure and the beautiful book of reflections of members on the significance of this church in their lives.
The capsule of 2013 would have photos of beloved members who died and new members who joined and of babies who were welcomed and so much more.
We can light a candle in honor and gratitude for this year of congregational life.
If you were to create a time capsule for your 2013 what would you place in it? You can add objects, photos, written reflections.
We hope you will find a quiet space and time to reflect.
Here are a few questions for your reflection. These questions and more are available as you leave the sanctuary.
What new paths did you travel in 2013? What did you let go of?
Where did you encounter beauty, mystery, the holy?
What were regrets and disappointments?
What are some of the good things that happened, the special blessings of the year?
You could share your reflections with a good friend or your partner or children.
Maybe you’ll light a candle at the end of your reflection in honor and gratitude for another year of life.
In a few days, this opportunity for reflection on 2013 will have passed. It will seem no longer relevant or interesting. Take time to acknowledge what has been and the ending to our calendar year.
Endings make way for beginnings.
For the last few years, our daughter Sarah has participated in a New Year’s Day party where people make collages for their hopes for the year ahead. With cut out words and pictures from magazines, everyone creates images and sets intentions for the New Year.
What pictures and words come to your mind as you imagine the New Year?
When you make time for reflection on 2013, also allow dreams to arrive. Look forward as well as behind. Envision possibilities.
Here are some questions and more are available for your consideration.
What dream arises and how will you nurture it?
What will you do regularly to renew your spirit?
What justice issue will you pursue this year?
Name a hope for the New Year and what you will do to make it possible.
We encourage you to share these reflections also with others. You can light a candle for the mystery of your life and its unending possibility and promise.
Let these hopes and dreams become guides. Resolutions easily become ways we measure ourselves and find ourselves lacking because we’re not making all the changes we resolved to make. Let these hopes and dreams point the way to the path we wish to travel, the path so easily overgrown and lost.
They are not written in stone. Your answers may change. A dream that nurtures and inspires you on January 5th may not on May 1st. You may discover a different justice issue beckons you than the one you originally chose. You may find new answers to the New Year’s questions.
Set out to befriend yourself rather than change yourself this year. Bring lovingkindness to your own heart, for your own self, as much as you bring it to the world. Accept being human, and be gentle with yourself.
It was fun this holiday when our son Ben took a few of our family time capsules off the shelf. We looked through objects, words, and photos. Memories of times with people and places were stirred.
We came upon a photo of the nineteen pairs of slippers we sent as Christmas presents in 1997 to three generations of my family in Oklahoma. Since my father’s death in January of 2007, I have had his slippers. Each morning when I walk in them, my father lives again in me –the young engineer, determined yet gentle, the committed church
leader, the loving son, father, grandfather, great grandfather, always open to the future,
looking forward to the next chapter of his life. These slippers are now worn…not much tread is left, the bottoms are slick. I will let go of the slippers, but I will always be grateful for my father. He will be with me always.
Now I envision and welcome 2014 with these new little shoes. Friday, just two days ago, our daughter Laura and our son-in-law Josh visited the doctor to learn the baby they are expecting is a boy, our first grandchild. As we enter the new year, in a very real way, new life and new possibilities are before us.
It is especially apparent to me with Laura’s pregnancy, yet I know that for each one of us, this beginning year holds newness. I will light a candle for the mystery of life and its unending possibility and promise.
Here’s my vision for my 2014. For Christmas, Bill gave me these new hiking boots. This new year, I have miles to go!
Once I wore shoes this small—and so did you! Since then we’ve had lots of growing ~ physical, emotional, spiritual. Our colleague Rev. Terry Kime helps us reflect on growing. We all have had many times of finding our way anew.
We all put on shoes and found our way and learned to love.
Again and again, we did it. And we’re still doing it.
Now maybe instead of our shoe size changing, it’s our heart size ~ the heart’s capacity to embrace more, to keep growing and loving.
Let’s look back to where we’ve come from and trust in where we are going.
May all of us find our way into the New Year.
Let us do what we can to increase the odds on making the year something beautiful and loving.
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Many thanks to our collegial reflection group (Revs. Terry Kime, Roy Reynolds, Barbara Carlson, Michelle Tonozzi) who shared with one another old year/new year thoughts, ideas, personal stories and questions.
