St. Peter's Episcopal Church

ONE BODY, ONE MISSION, CHANGING LIVES

Thoughts From Eric

Dear St. Peter’s Family,

January is a difficult month through no real fault of its own. Coming right after the emotional high of Christmas, January is always a letdown.

January is when reality sets in. We are faced with paying the bills for our exuberance during the holidays, taxes are often due, and we start receiving our W2’s, 1099’s, etc. reminding us the headache of tax filing is just around the corner.

Gone are the colorful trappings of Christmas replaced by the grayness of cold weather. Spring and summer seem so far away. Beyond New Year’s Day, poor January has no major holidays to divert our attention from reality.

Most of us start the month, however, with good intentions for a new year. We are going to lose weight, get more exercise; we are going to quit smoking, cut back on our drinking; we will spend more time with our spouses and families.

By the end of the month, however, we are usually already seeing the first signs of our inability to keep the resolutions we so eagerly made for ourselves on New Year’s Day.

The months of the year and even the times and events they mark, however, are just human constructions – artificial divisions in our concept of what we call time. Those divisions and the meaning we attribute to them have little to do with God.

God is as much present in this world in January as he is in Easter’s Spring or December’s Christmas. While God’s presence is consistent, our openness to him varies.

Christmas in particular has the power to enable us to see with a certain child-like wonder – “the joy and wonder of all God’s works” – as the Prayer Book says. The difficult part is to do this in January without the emotional seduction of Christmas.

Perhaps this should really be our real resolution for this year – to be more open to the joy and wonder of life as the creation of God in January and throughout the year.

It is a difficult resolution to carry out; however, the everydayness of our lives very powerfully wants to shut our eyes to anything but itself; but what promise lies in living into a life of joy and wonder.

Such a resolution begins with our willingness to simply open our eyes to truly see what is.

Even January has its wonders. Let’s look for them.

Fr. Eric+