Here is to endings and beginnings. I read an article recently referring to the week between Christmas and New Years as “Dead Week: a time when nothing counts, and when nothing is quite real.” It is a time when many people just do…nothing. I looked at my calendar to cross reference my own life, and it’s true — nothing official is scheduled. It is truly an “in between” time. Perhaps these days are also a kind of grace, “a time when simply existing is enough.”

As covid comes up on two years and likely swept through many of our families during the holidays, it is hard to anticipate a new year with total joy and excitement. And yet it is also a perfect opportunity to evaluate what it means to be present to what is, to each day as it comes, even when the day feels heavy. I don’t pretend this is easy. I, too, want to know what the future holds, where we are headed. In this particularly unsettling time when our country, perhaps the world, feels ill at ease and divisive, it is so normal to long for what is comfortable and familiar. For so many of us, Ordinary Life has been that over the years. As we find our rhythm in 2022, as we attend to the pressing matters of the mind, heart, and soul, as we celebrate and struggle, we hope to continue to create a container that is big enough for all of it.

No matter who you are, or where you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome here.

Thanks for listening.

Quotes from "All Hail Dead Week, the Best Week of the Year” in The Atlantic, 12.27.21