Dear Friends,
The dawn of the new year always directs my thoughts towards time, but even more so this year. The build up to Christmas and having both the Christmas Day Holiday and the New Year’s Day Holiday fall on a Wednesday has me wondering even more about time and how I use it. While the calendar says that this is Friday, January 3, 2025, there is a part of me that feels like it is a Tuesday. I am finally taking this Friday to welcome the new year with a renewed perspective and hope for all the possibilities it holds.
I learned this week that the etymology of resolution is resolvere (Latin): loosen, release. Yes, that’s right. Instead of battening down the hatches to hit harder at our goals, we’re supposed to use the New Year as an opportunity to let go. We need to let things go to move forward into new beginnings. It is so much easier to find momentum to move forward if we lighten our load. This year, let’s embrace intentions that move us forward. If the Advent and Christmas seasons are about preparing room for Christ to be born in the stable of our hearts and Epiphany is seeing the light of Christ that allows us to move into new directions, I hope that we can live each day as a new beginning and a unique opportunity to encounter Emmanuel, the God with us. There is grace hidden in every moment. It is a gift, and it is up to us to see it. It is a meaningful and achievable resolution in the truest sense of the word. As we begin 2025, I invite you to join me to reflect on your inner life—not as a resolution to achieve, but as an act of love for yourself and the world around you.
This week we are thrilled to welcome David Stuart to the pulpit. Dave is a third-year student at Yale Divinity School. He recently retired as a partner at the New York City law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he spent most of his 28-year legal career. Upon his retirement from Cravath, he began serving as Special Pro Bono Counsel at the firm overseeing the Incarcerated Survivors’ Initiative – an award-winning program he founded to represent incarcerated survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence. Later this month, he will begin a new role as Pastor of Teaching and Preaching at Wilton Congregational Church. We are so lucky to have him with us.
We look forward to seeing you on Sunday morning.
Love,
Cheryl