It Comes to Us All (Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama)

 "Beauty that
we left behind
how shall we
tomorrow find

Set aside
our weight in sin
so that we
can live again"  -Ben Harper

Hopeful. Tired. Expectant. Regretful. Anxious. Suffering. Celebrating. Sorrowing. We stand on the threshold. Whatever the journey of the last year entailed for us, however we come to it, tonight we will step across, out of the old year and into the new.

Some of us will mark this passing in the company of friends and family, some in huge celebratory crowds, life’s demands will cause others to mark the occasion while at work, or in hospitals and still others will pass the night in church. Regardless of where we are tonight, whether we limp, crawl, run or skip into it, the New Year will come to us all. We will together meet it at 12:00 AM.

As we do at the dawning of each new year, we turn toward possibility, we breathe deeply of hope and remember that the baby of the manger came to make all things new, that what is lost may be found again, what is broken may be repaired, that the world can be changed.

But most of all today, at AMP we want to remember that we walk into the New Year together. This is a great hope. For within one another lie innumerable possibilities-- for support, companionship, solidarity, tenacity, creativity to heal our hearts, hold us up, pull us forward, feed our hungers, and transform us and the world in which we live.  The divine gift of possibility, of hope, dwells richly in us when we are community.

full lyrics here. 

Today’s music selection sings through moments of struggle and fatigue, of wondering about the future, of hopefulness and rebirth;  all of them hemmed in by choruses that speak of reaching out in faith and that assert “I shall not walk alone.”  As we end this season of the Advent Music Project, this is the message that we hope carries us through in the New Year: we do not walk alone.

The New Year meets us all together, may we know in our selves the power of that together-ness as we walk into this next year.   

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. -Romans 15:13

Thank you for journeying with us through Advent and peace to you in the coming year.               

-Anna and Lindsey

Tues Jan. 3 - Resolution Revolution (The Frames)

I want my life to make more sense,
I want my life to make amends,
I want my life to make more sense to me.
                  - The Frames


I'm not a New Year's "resolver."  I have never made a resolution to do something after the new year, similar to how I have only a very few times "given up" anything for Lent.  It's not that I have anything against the original concept of these traditions; it's just that their everyday forms generally fail to inspire me.  For instance, how much does giving up chocolate desserts for forty days really inspire me to think about my life or Christ's sufferings?  Not that much, really.

It's not that I can't imagine a possible scenario where giving up something small for Lent could help me focus or practice self-discipline, or how a New Year's Resolution could inspire me to new depths of self-actualization and happiness... it just also seems a little unlikely.

What would it look like if our resolutions had a revolution (literally turned around) to become something that was a little less about ourselves and reached out to encompass a community, a family, a world?

Sure, let's still go to the gym, but also let's think about the mark we leave on the lives of others, how our acts create waves that we can't even see.  Let's think about how we're making sense of our lives, how we are making amends, how we rightly choose to stay and fight or choose to find a fresh road forward...

Pavement Tune by The Frames (lyrics HERE)

Turns out, this ties right back into Christmas.  In the usual December flurry of "Does the 'Christ' Still Matter in Christmas?" articles, my favorite was one in the Huffington Post that reminded us that 'the greatest attack on Christmas has come from within,' from Christians whose actions so little resembled the teachings of Christ.

It is galvanizing to remember that perhaps my resolutions might take a different form because of Christmas: one of honoring the baby born in Bethlehem and the man he grew to be by starting anew the revolution in my own life - the turning again towards the difficult task of trying to live with more grace and less judgement, with more understanding and less ignorance, with more compassion and and less need for control.

Making all things new is ultimately a process of grace through God's help, but it is also a process of time and desire -- and practice.  We must want our actions to be transformed or we make God's work infinitely harder.  So it begs the question: how are our resolutions at the new year, at the mid-year, and elsewhere opening us daily to this transformation both personally and communally?

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

                          - 2 Cor 3: 18

May the work of the Spirit continue to be seen through even our small acts of courage, grace and peace in this coming year.

                                            - Anna

Sun Jan. 1 - Happy New Year: Go. Do. (Jonsi)

Go Do by Jonsi  (lyrics HERE)

What 

will 

you 

 see?

Where will you go?

Who are you becoming?

Blessings for the journey...and may God the Friend walk with you.

Sat. Dec 31 - Blessing for a New Year (The Wailin' Jennys)

A prayer for a new year's eve:

On the threshold,

Look, 

just look:

keep your eyes open, even as the hours and days 

continue to change around you

- challenge become opportunity become gauntlet become grace -

grace upon grace.

may you allow yourself to be transformed

by play, by hope,

and even by the strange wholeness hidden within what 

irrevocably breaks.

may your dreams, work, possibility and desire

call you deeper into the world, 

into the nexus where human souls 

graciously meet.

May your mind be widened by the Friend's

holy surprises, 

by the Spirit's delightful soul-nudges.

and when you find yourself standing where all things turn,

may the tensions bless you 

may the tensions bless you

and may a joyous creation greet you at every dawn.

on 

the 

threshold,

May we know the blessing of letting go and the sacredness of  memory, peace at our beginnings and peace at our endings.

May welcome find us, even as we open our arms to take the world in.

May hope be the song that excites our steps for the journey
and love be the voice that calls us home.

The Parting Glass performed by the Wailin' Jennys

May it be so for you and yours.

-Anna and Lindsey

  

Fri Dec. 30 - Brave New World (Nina Simone)

It's a new dawn

It's a new day

It's a new life

for me...

and I'm feelin' good...

New Year's Eve music is its own special genre: hopeful songs, wistful songs, starting-over songs, never-again songs, one-too-many drinking songs, gimme-some-lovin' songs, funny-resolution songs and depressive songs all vie for space to tell us they truly tell it like it was.

Feeling Good doesn't quite fit any of these categories, even though the words have a straightforward starting-over theme.  In contrast, the music behind the lyrics has this minor-keyed lurch and grind that gives it a lot more gravitas than the words themselves convey.  It's a song of mixed emotions, mixed times - an apt song for a moment when the old and new overlap in onelong night.

What I hear is someone who's had a rough time - maybe a really rough time - and has now made it to the other side.  Or maybe what I hear is someone who has found new strength, new drive, new determination.  Or maybe what I hear is someone just that so overjoyed  that the freedom and hope they feel within is echoed in every movement of Creation.  What I hear in all of these possibilities is someone who can hope onward into the future because she/he knows from where she came and can still look around her and truly be 'feelin' good.'

Maybe this was a wonderful, blessing-filled year for you, and the best possible thing 2012 could bring is another year like it.  Maybe it's just been a good year: good changes, good vibes, full of possibilities and adventures despite some rough spots.  Maybe it hasn't been a good year at all, or a downright drag-yourself-to-the-finish one.  No matter what, hoping onward requires knowing from where you've come well-enough to look clear-eyed at the present and the future, and maybe even claiming this very moment as really and truly "good."

2011 is drawing to a close.  Whatever it's meant to us, a new year rises to greet us with new promises and possibilities.  How is Creation calling to you about possibility, hope and freedom?

Feeling Good by Nina Simone; video by Tamara Connolly

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;

let the sea resound, and all that is in it.

Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;

Let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.

                                                      - Psalm 96: 11-12

In these final hours of a passing year, may we reflect, rejoice, laugh and welcome a new year, 'a bold world,' of freedom and grace.