New Year

Happy New Year! I know that I am hoping that 2021 is a little better than 2020 was for us, although there were plenty of good things and celebrations that also happened in a year filled with lots of things we never thought we might experience. But, of course, we are not out of the woods yet, and as I said on Sunday, we just have to be prepared to “go home by a different road” when our plans inevitably change. And we have to trust that the Spirit will lead us in the right direction.

One of my plans for last year was to focus on reading books I had purchased, rather than getting new books from the library. But, even with the library being closed since March, that didn’t really happen. According to Goodreads, I read 128 books, or 37,910 pages. The shortest book was only 27 pages and was about Junia, a female apostle named in Romans, and the longest was Ron Chernow’s biography on Grant at 1,074 (I was reading that when I had shingles, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do). This year I want to try and tackle my “to read” list of things that sounded interesting when I encountered them, but wasn’t going to read at the time. That’s part of a resolution.

Another resolution I had when I was appointed to Los Alamos was to become involved in the community. Last year I was approached about serving on several different boards, and the one I accepted was for the library, where I was just elected chair. I’m not sure what all that entails but I will find out as we go along.

If you are still thinking about things to do in this new year, on Sunday I said that besides for deepening our faith lives, and our relationship with the church, we should also work to deepen our relationship with our community. And while there are many ways to do that, might I also suggest joining me in serving on a county board? There are several immediate openings or those coming up, including for Art in Public Places, Historic Preservation, Public Health, and Personnel, to name a few. You can find more information on the county website

I don’t know what this year will bring for us, but I am excited about the possibilities. As I always say, the best year this congregation has ever had is not in the past, its next year. And it takes all of us to bring that about. I look forward to this year and working with all of you to do the things that God has planned for us, some known, and some unknown, so that we will continue to be God’s love in action.