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Dear friends:
The turning of a new year is a natural point for reflection, a brief epoch for asking questions, evaluating, and setting new intentions for the next stretch of pathway. Some years my intentions are firm – actual resolutions – to scale a daunting mountain, read a historical trilogy, take part in a mission trip. Other years, these intentions are more gentle -- to pray more, to try softer not harder, to read regularly and stay renewed.
As has long been my custom, this year I again spent quieter time after Christmas and stumbled upon a book I had long overlooked: The Gift of Years by Joan Chittister. Upon turning seventy, Chittister, a Benedictine sister and bestselling author, wrote, “The task of this period of life is not simply to endure the coming of the end of time. It is to come alive in ways I have never been alive before… I begin to see the world differently. It is to be treasured, to be explored, to be enjoyed.”
And then this statement that made me think of the passage we’ll explore this weekend: “The number of absolutes in my life is precipitously reduced. I’m a lot less dogmatic about the nature of God. I’m not as sure as I once was about what is gravely damning and what is not. Most important of all, I am happy to put that decision in the hands of God, whose nature seems far more compassionate now” (p. 42). It’s good wisdom regardless of our age and stage.
It will be a rich Sunday at Covenant. Well-known author, founder of Homeboy Industries, the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program, and Jesuit priest Greg Boyle will be teaching in the Fellowship Hall at 9:30 a.m. and preaching on these passages in the Sanctuary at 11:00 a.m. I will be preaching on this passage in the other services, and communion will be celebrated in all. It promises to be an excellent way to start the year.
Come, and bring a friend.
Bob
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