The holiday season brings with it a jumble of emotions. That it happens during the time of year when the light grows less is significant. Maybe the holiday hubbub helps us be more open about both how difficult relations can be and how important it is to us to connect with others in supportive ways.
Family gatherings are so often filled with tensions, bringing together a diversity of opinions and beliefs we don't often subject ourselves to. And yet, we come together. There is something more important than agreeing on everything. And maybe that's what the holidays are about. A love that is beyond belief. A love that transcends boundaries. A recognition that we are, in fact, fellow passengers on our blue boat home.
This year has brought with it a number of endings and changes and transitions for this Fellowship. Your minister and your Worship Leader moved on to other callings, and even as you were glad for them and continue to support them and be proud of them, it has meant a great deal of change for the Fellowship. We still mourn the deaths of Auburna Bonnell and Valerie Stephens. There have been changes of fortune in our work lives and personal lives.
As the light returns, may it renew our connections to one another and our world. As the light returns, may it renew our faith in life resurgent. As the light returns, may we be bold in our loving. Emboldened to commit ourselves to live, as Scrooge says, "in the Past, the Present and the Future!" May we go into the new year mindful of those present to us in their legacy as well as those present to us only in the promise that they will yet be. May we be the returning light for one another in the tumult of possibility that is here and now. The light returns! Amen and Blessed Be.
This year has brought with it a number of endings and changes and transitions for this Fellowship. Your minister and your Worship Leader moved on to other callings, and even as you were glad for them and continue to support them and be proud of them, it has meant a great deal of change for the Fellowship. We still mourn the deaths of Auburna Bonnell and Valerie Stephens. There have been changes of fortune in our work lives and personal lives.
As the light returns, may it renew our connections to one another and our world. As the light returns, may it renew our faith in life resurgent. As the light returns, may we be bold in our loving. Emboldened to commit ourselves to live, as Scrooge says, "in the Past, the Present and the Future!" May we go into the new year mindful of those present to us in their legacy as well as those present to us only in the promise that they will yet be. May we be the returning light for one another in the tumult of possibility that is here and now. The light returns! Amen and Blessed Be.
