Happy New Year Friends!
May it be a blessed time for each of you and for Universalist National Memorial Church.
One of my favorite books is For the Time Being by Annie Dillard. In it
she challenges the reader in a number of ways. Here's a passage that
offers a challenge for us at the beginning of another year.
"There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure
generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always
been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent,
important, fearful, and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote,
deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee
misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that
rustic people knew God personally once upon a time-or even knew
selflessness or courage or literature-but that it is too late for us.
In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There
never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less."
No one here but us chickens. No holier age than ours. She's got our
number. We are busy, powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important,
fearful, and (sometimes) self-aware. All of that along with the ways
we fall far short of our potential. One of the most dangerous ways we
cower or seek to flee is by imagining it is too late for us.
Ah, it is not too late. It is only the beginning. And we are here "to
abet creation and to witness to it" (also Annie Dillard). May we begin
the New Year with an awareness of our power. The passing days will
temper any self-importance that emerges. Let us begin knowing that
despite the finite reality of our humanity, we live as well in the
midst of infinite possibility.
I'm not suggesting we should sit down and create an outrageous list of
resolutions. Just one. That we seek to know the holy within us and
around us (most especially in all those we meet) so that we may
believe in and live in the infinite possibility.
It's not too late.
Love,
Mary Katherine