The Reverend Susan E. Hill
Merry Christmas!
This is a season of new beginnings. We are in Christmastide (remember we celebrate the birth of Jesus for twelve full days!), and the miracle of the birth of the baby Jesus is also the miracle of the new life of Christ being born within each of us. And soon we will begin the new calendar year of 2019. So it seems like a good time to seek blessing upon all that is newly developing in our lives. As I preached on the last Sunday of Advent, we often have feelings of impatience, instability, and anxiety as something new matures within us. But when it is finally ready to come forth, it is good for us to be grateful, and to continue to nurture it along. And so I offer this blessing from John O’Donohue, whose book of blessings called To Bless the Space Between Us is well worth adding to your library.
This is a season of new beginnings. We are in Christmastide (remember we celebrate the birth of Jesus for twelve full days!), and the miracle of the birth of the baby Jesus is also the miracle of the new life of Christ being born within each of us. And soon we will begin the new calendar year of 2019. So it seems like a good time to seek blessing upon all that is newly developing in our lives. As I preached on the last Sunday of Advent, we often have feelings of impatience, instability, and anxiety as something new matures within us. But when it is finally ready to come forth, it is good for us to be grateful, and to continue to nurture it along. And so I offer this blessing from John O’Donohue, whose book of blessings called To Bless the Space Between Us is well worth adding to your library.
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
AMEN!
