Happy 2021!
After the year that 2020 ended up being, I feel like I should be shouting that from all the available rooftops. Happy 2021! May it be vastly different and better than the year that is past.
The truth, of course, is that we never quite know what a new year will hold, for us, for our community, or for the world. In most every year there are things both wonderful and awful that we never could have expected on Jan. 1. IN our first two services of the year, we’ll talk about the year that was and how we enter into a new year. I invite you to come to both, and especially to the one on Jan. 10 when we will once again join our friends from Thoreau Woods for a combined worship service.
But 2020? Whew, what a year. Though the corona virus epidemic had its origins at the tail end of 2019, few of us had any inkling how much it would affect last year. I struggle to imagine how I would explain mass shelter-in-place orders, widespread mask usage, or the shutdown of large segments of the economy to my early-2020 self.
Of course, my family also had changes that we had some inkling of, but couldn’t fully comprehend – moving across the country, starting in a new community and new schools, and serving new congregations.
In short, I’m trying to prepare myself for whatever the new year brings, both expected and not-so-much. I encourage you to do so too!
I’m reminded of the Mary Oliver poem “The Summer Day” and the line from it: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Friends, as we enter in 2021, I’m thinking a lot about this. What is it we plan to do with this wild and precious year?
In faith,
Rev. Christian Schmidt
Photo by Weston MacKinnon on Unsplash