A Prayer for the New Year

By Pamela Haines

As we head toward a new year, let us:

Take in the environment around us with relaxed awareness—appreciating beauty and opportunity, noticing threats, staying grounded in the midst of both;

Cultivate gratitude, for spaces that have opened in our society, for all the forces of goodness around us;

Continue to discern what belongs on our plate and commit to doing no less and no more; do what belongs whole-heartedly, with all the power and vision we can muster; let go of the rest, trusting that it will be taken care of by others;

Dare to imagine a new thing: call others to a vision of what is possible; call our institutions to their divine vocation, call each other to our shared humanity;

Tend to small joys in the midst of a pandemic;

Know what we love and love it with all our hearts;

Be willing to have our hearts break—to grieve openly and with each other;

Do the work of a spider, strengthening the web of relationships around us, and throwing out threads to enlarge it and pull ever more people in.