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new year's day

‘Thanks be to God!’

“Who are humans that you are mindful of them,” the psalmist asks of the Almighty. “Mortals that you care for them?” It’s something to think about this New Year’s Day. I too wonder why God continues to cast God’s lot with us, and with me personally. Of late, with wars and climate change and gun violence, we haven’t given God much to be excited about.

New Year’s Day

One of the evening psalms among today’s lectionary readings is Psalm 8, which includes some of the most wondrous words in the Bible: 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

A new year with some of the same old problems

None of the New Year’s Day metaphors — a clean slate, a do-over, a second chance, even grace itself — can quite capture the hopefulness I experience most New Year’s Day mornings. The possibilities seem almost as endless as the upcoming year’s to-do list.

20/20 vision

Today’s my favorite day of the year. The start of a new year always gives me a peaceful feeling and reminds me of a new box of crayons or a blank canvas, full of possibilities and hope.