Each year in the last week of the old year and the first week of the new year I take a pause to do a little looking back and looking forward.  The idea is to deepen my experience of life by deliberately moving through the action/reflection cycle.  Rather than simply letting things happen, go by, disappear, I find it spiritually healthy to regularly pause and take stock.  What happened?  How did it go?  What did I learn?  What should I do now?

Doing that work for the start of this year, I noticed a change in how I’m wanting to approach the coming year.  In past years, I’ve looked at the coming year and set a number of intentions for myself.  You can call them resolutions.  I want to exercise more, or read more, or make more time for friends.  You’ve probably made similar lists.  Usually I write down my intentions and then around June I do a guilt-free check-in to see how I’m doing. 

That’s one way to make a year.  It’s worked for me in the past.

This year though, instead of thinking about the new year as an empty container that I need to fill, I’m feeling more called to the image of the new year as a landscape that I get to walk through.  Some of the landscape is already filled with events on my calendar, but most of the year I’ll discover as I get to it:  all the little things I can’t plan and don’t have to force.   Rather than creating the year as I go, which feels like a lot of pressure and requires continuous assertion of my own will, I’m feeling called to a more open, accepting, stance.

I’m thinking of 2020 as a journey that begins in January, and ends 12 months from now in December.  I’ll go through the year.  Take a trip.  Follow the path of the days.

Here at the church the journey begins with a new series of sermons in worship dealing with the goals of faith.  What is religion for?  I’ll also be hosting a mid-week creative group (Thursdays at 11am starting January 30) that will create a space for participants to explore the same worship themes through creative writing and art-making.

In February we will kick-off our Stewardship Campaign.  This year’s theme is “10 Percent More…”, where each of us can complete the phrase with whatever quality of our church experience is speaking to us.  10 percent more inspiration.  10 percent more fellowship.  10 percent more fun.  10 percent more compassion.  10 percent more effective.  What do you wish for?

More distant landmarks of our journey will be the end of the search, meeting our candidate minister, and the vote to call on May 3.  I’ll be with you through the end of June and then our paths will separate.  The new minister will join you in August.  The new church year will begin in September.  There will be an Ingathering service, a Dia de los Muertos, a Holiday Pageant, Christmas Eve…

And here we will be again.  Or rather, we will be there.  At the far end of the year we are about to go through.