Each year I look forward to the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. For me, it is a relatively slow period that offers space and time to focus more on being and less on doing. It is a time for reflection on the year that has come and gone – the joys, the hardships, the blessed day in and day out – the mosaic of relationships and experiences that make up our lives.

Here in this liminal time, I would like to share a few stanzas from John O’Donohue’s poem titled ‘At the End of the Year’ from his well-known and well-loved book, To Bless the Space Between Us:

“As this year draws to its end,

We give thanks for the gifts it brought

And how they became inlaid within

Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted

And the soul could see delight;

When a quiver caressed the heart

In the sheer exuberance of being here.

The darkened days that stopped

The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter

With light from beyond themselves;

And from the granite of some secret sorrow

A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,

For all we loved and lost

And for the quiet way it brought us

Nearer to our invisible destination.”

In the new year and with whatever it may bring, I pray that we are able to keep our whole beings in tune with the love and light of Christ that flows through us and between us.

With peace and gratitude,

Emily+