Blessings of a New Year

Blessings of a fresh new year to you! I hope you had the best holiday season available to you, and are entering this new year feeling somewhat rested and renewed. It's been a year, hasn't it?

I've always loved these more quiet, gentle days between Christmas and the return to school and work. After the holiday gatherings with friends and family, after the travels, after the bags are unpacked and the new gifts find their place, there's this rare lull. The schedule is more simple. The communication slows. We can take out time rising and pushing out into the world. It's like we all need a collective break from the going and doing, the noise and activity, to come back to ourselves, get our bearings, and begin again. I don't know about you, but I really do feel a sense of hope, energy and fresh possibility. Partly, of course, it's the turning of the new year. But partly, I think, it's this time when we may just feel more rested, free, and open because there is not as much demanding our time and attention.

That said, I do still have two small boys running around, so I don't always get to reflecting on the year behind and the year ahead like I want to. And honestly, I'm often so tired from all the December decision making and tasking, the last thing I want to do immediately is make all kinds of new resolutions and To Do lists. I'm grateful for the wisdom to spread times prayer, reflection and discernment over the whole month, to give myself permission to gently enter into January with enough space and time to find my way.

Perhaps another gift of growing older and a little wiser is that I'm pretty clear on what makes for a good life for me: warm and deep relationships, meaningful work, a gentle pace, time for reading, prayer and reflection, enough movement and rest. Granted, the knowing can be pretty simple, it's the living it out that can be more challenging, especially when there are so many competing messages and claims upon us. I appreciated this Atlantic article that posited we usually get the happiness formula all wrong, concentrating on self-actualization and material gain, when the happiness research finds that it's our investment in RELATIONSHIPS that makes for a healthy and fulfilling life. I think we know this at some level, but it can still be hard to prioritize.

So here's to another year of trying to prioritize what truly makes for LIFE for each and all of us. If you are someone who also longs for spiritual community and practice, who wants to prioritize them in the new year, I'd love to support you. Whether it's attending the Sacred Pause Retreat next Sunday, joining the Tuesday evening Wellsprings circle, participating in the weekly FLOW of prayer, spiritual reading, and reflection, or receiving monthly spiritual direction, I hope Deep Waters may offer you space to really listen to your life and find new joy, meaning, connection and direction in the year ahead.

Grace and peace in your 2023,

Kimberly