Happy New Year

Happy New Year….again! We celebrated at the beginning of December with a new church/liturgical year, at the beginning of January with a new calendar year, and now, at the beginning of February with a new lunar year! That’s a lot of celebrating. I pray each of these occasions has been an opportunity for you to look back in gratitude, look forward with hope, and stand in the present with purpose.

As is often the case, occasions in our cultural calendars are crossing paths with important junctures in our spiritual and religious calendars. On the 3^rd day of the Spring Festival (kicked off by the lunar new year), the day when sons in laws typically pay respect to their parents in law, we’ll be marking Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. And on the first Sunday in Lent, the world will be marking St. Valentines Day. In other words, we are feasting in one world while we are being called to fast in another. We are celebrating and setting off firecrackers or indulging in chocolate in one world, while in the other, we are being called to self-examination and repentance. This “mash up” certainly keeps things interesting, doesn’t it? We might wonder how we best live out and practice our faith and witness in the midst of the world?

I want to warmly invite and heartily encourage you to attend this year’s Ash Wednesday worship (Feb. 10th at 7:30 p.m.) No other liturgical season begins in quite the same way as the season of Lent. Rather than beginning on a Sunday, we begin on a Wednesday and mark 40 days for fasting and penance from there (I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how we get 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.) This season is like no other in its intensity and call to draw close to God, to allow God to break us open, and to take inventory of our lives as we reorient ourselves to God, our true north. It is both a solo journey that we take as well as a communal one.

Our Lenten theme this year is: Community and Submission. Our theme invites us to explore, remember, reconsider and reflect on what Christian community is all about, and how being community is a fundamental spiritual practice as a disciple. We are often reminded that we cannot be Christians alone and that our faith comes alive only when practiced in community. Do we believe this? Do we live as if we believe this? Further, our theme challenges us to consider the practice of submission as a basic and essential ingredient to Christian community. That could be a hard pill to swallow, yet its life-giving potential is mighty. So what do you think? Will you dive in with both feet to the new season? Will you open your heart to the theme and invite God to show you what Abundant Life looks like anew? Will you intentionally journey together? I hope so. I pray so.

See you at Lent’s “starting line” on Ash Wednesday!
Peace, Emily