Happy Monday – and happy new year!
Well, beloveds, here we are in 2022.
In some ways, this seems an awful lot like where we were a year ago…or even TWO years ago…but things are changing, I promise that they are.
Listen to your lungs for a minute. Their easy movement of air, in and out of your body, is something that you probably overlook most of the time. But they are keeping you alive. They are moving that life-giving breath, that ruach through every cell of your being. And they’re doing it while you don’t even pay attention. Amazing!
Change in our lives – and change in our world – works in a similar fashion. It might happen slowly, or on such a minute level that it’s easy to overlook – but it’s happening all around us, every moment that we’re on this earth.
Take encouragement from that, my friends – and seek today to be just a little bit of the change that you want to see in the world.
Tucked into today’s musing you’ll find hymns of praise to all sorts of change. Hopefully at least one of these tidbits will brighten your day, and bring some deeper meaning to your experience of this new year.
peace,
Ann-Louise
P.S. As always – thanks to Mark Birge-Anderson for that refreshing opening shot of the lake at sunrise!
We are now in the season of Epiphany – be on the lookout for revelations, realizations, manifestations and surprise!
(Image by Mark Birge-Anderson)
Take a poetry break & read
by Lucille Clifton
(Photo by Fitsum Admasu on Unsplash)
Every Sunday in church, during the Prayers of the People, we name those in the city of Chicago who have lost their lives to homicide – often due to gun violence – since we last gathered for worship. One of the names lifted up in church this week was LaNiyah Murphy, a 20 year old anti-violence activist killed in West Pullman. Read more about her life here.
If you’re not familiar yet with Kelly Latimore’s powerful contemporary icons, you should check out her work here.
It was through her instagram account that I came across the “Prayer for a Pandemic,” by Cameron Bellm (@cameronbellm) that I shared in worship on Sunday.
Click here to read the full prayer.
Resolve to think bigger in 2022
That almost sounds like an exhortation from the Dream Team to the Wellington community – but it’s actually an article that I recently read in The New York Times. It starts out like an article about New Year’s resolutions (yawn), but then goes both deep and broad and tackles the shifts that we need to make in our own lives to bring about the world we want to live in. If you’re interested in reading the article, too, you can click here or click on the title above to access it. And if you do read it – send me an email and let me know what you thought of it!
If you stuck around to the end of Fellowship Hour on Sunday, you got to share a laugh over this video titled “God’s Tech Support.”
Click on the image above to enjoy it again!
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