December 2022

Reflection

Happy December!

I hope you’re ready for the new year.

I found myself going into the holidays needing a bit of inspiration for 2023.  I found it in two beautiful books.  In our last Dinner Church gathering, I shared some ideas from Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by the poet, scientist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall-Kimmerer. I have been hearing great praise regarding this book for years.  So, I share a bit more about her understanding of gifts and commodities:

A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning.  It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet it appears. Your only role is to be open-eyed and present. Gifts exist in a realm of humility and mystery – as with random acts of kindness, we do not know their source…Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, an obligation of sorts to give, to receive, and to reciprocate.

My hope is we can spend time at our retreat on January 20th discussing who we see ourselves as in this moment and what being aspiring followers of Jesus means for us individually collectively in 2023.