The Rev. Kathleen McTigue has written words for the New Year that will be used this month in congregations around the country. (They are in the back of our hymnal at #544):
The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises, the earth moving in its rhythms, with or without our calendars to name a certain day as the day of new beginning, separating the old from the new.
So it is: everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound.
Yet also we stand at a threshold, the New Year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands.
What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year?
Let us begin by remembering that whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people.
The New Year can be new ground for the seeds of our dreams. Let us take the step forward together, onto new ground, planting our dreams well, faithfully, and in joy.
What shall we do with this great gift of Time, this year? That is not just a question for each of us to ponder individually, but a question for us collectively as well. What shall we – the members and friends of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church – do with this great gift of Time? One answer is that we will do what our hearts, our minds, our consciences, and our convictions call on us to do. Another is that we will do what the resources we have – of “time, talent, and treasure” – will enable us to do. The two are intertwined.
As stewards of our community’s resources, each and every one of us is part of that later answer because we are the building blocks of this community. We are this community; there is no one else but us. It takes each and every single one of us – from the member of longest standing to the most recent visitor – to make TJMC what it is, and to grow into what it can be. As stewards of our congregation we are, each of us, essential because, as Rev. McTigue said, “whatever justice, whatever peace and wholeness might bloom in our world this year, we are the hearts and minds, the hands and feet, the embodiment of all the best visions of our people.”