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I have never had much luck with keeping New Year’s Resolutions. I suspect that, all too often, folks use the turning of the calendar to help motivate a change that feels otherwise insurmountable, something to do with health, drinking more water, getting better sleep, exercising more….or perhaps I’m just confessing my own limited understanding of their purpose. I can understand the rationale, though I’m skeptical about the effectiveness of that kind of resolution. The only one I’ve ever “succeeded” at doing (for most if not all of a year), was the time I committed to trying one new thing every week. Often, it turned out to be a food I had never tried before, or as simple as driving home by roads I’d never traveled (with a nod to Robert Frost). This spirit of engaging newness and the expansiveness it invites, motivated more by curiosity than dread or obligation, seemed to me the best kind of resolution for me. Perhaps I’ll make one of those this year.
I will admit I’m not sorry to say farewell to 2025, that fraught year and the awful outcomes that the power hungry machined in its name (and still do). No doubt there will be many more of what Dorothy Parker might call “fresh hells” in the year to come, and yet I am hopeful (the scrappy, bloody-knuckled kind akin to a faith that has been tried) that there will be as many or even more opportunities to push back in this new year, to claim and protect the causes of justice and compassion, of equity and healing. May your own sense of hope, or faith, or determination, or whatever it is that brings you strength and resolve, be kindled anew this year, in the presence of what strengthens you, in the presence of each other. And may you recognize the gorgeous strengths – so many of them! – that this community holds and shares in abundance.
Yours in the unwavering faith of a centered love,
Rev. Samara
Samara Powers (they/none)
Unitarian Universalist Minister
"Justice is what love looks like in public." Dr. Cornel West
*Generally, if someone indicates “none” here it means to use a name instead of a pronoun for that person. For example, “Fenwick wants you to refer to Fenwick by name instead of using any pronouns when speaking about Fenwick.” If someone indicates more than one type of pronouns choice here, usually that means either way is suitable/welcomed.
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