2020 Reflections

 

Psalms 139:7-12

Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

In a year that held darkness

we give thanks for gifts of light

In a year of loss we give thanks

for relationships strengthened

for love borne out

in myriad ways that made a difference

For all the signs of God

in those we encountered 

those who held out faith

when our own wavered

and those for whom we were enabled

to be companions on the way

We give thanks for the rediscovery

of gifts we had laid aside

forgotten in their familiarity

that became precious once more

as they became harder to reach

and all the more longed for

And in our thanksgiving

we embrace the wisdom revealed 

that, hopefully we won’t let go so easily

as we forge a new future

diminished by loss

yet strengthened by shared experience

that reminds us

that love is stronger than death

and light penetrates darkness

and that there is no place

that takes us beyond God’s reach.

May our reflection

continue to enable insight

changing the way we embrace the future

in the knowledge that we are held

always in the love and light of God.