Happy New Year!!

A friend recently sent a message on a group text: "Happy New Year.  Hope 2026 is better all around for everyone and everything."

Amen.  Kind of says it all, right?

2025 was rough for many of us.  For many reasons, both private and shared, 2025 was a hard year.  Hard in new ways... and hard in ways that have become all too familiar.

Of course, there were many joys in there, too.  Important joys: accomplishments, thresholds, moves, discoveries.  Big changes... and small steps taken with big hope.

2025 was a full year.  And... it's over.

I recall some shared wisdom in a grief group years ago.  The dialog prompt was "What has grief taught you that you would want to share with someone who is grieving for the first time?"  One response stood out: "I'd want them to know that it ends.  That it gets better."  Sometimes we all need a reminder that hard times don't last forever.  

Here we are at the turning of a new year.  A new beginning.  And before that beginning begins... a new ending precedes it.  So, whether 2025 was for you & yours a year of achievement or endurance, or both... whether it was uplifting or depleting, or both... it is over.  A new day dawns... and with it, new possiblity...

(Yes, technically this is true every day.  Every day, a new beginning, another chance.  But the turning of the year makes it that much more obvious, so... a blessing...)

May this new year bring you what you need.  
(And sometimes, too... what you want.)
May you let go of what no longer helps.  Grieve it, but let it go.
May all that is good in life be to you the ground of our being together.
May we know peace, and embody it.
May we know justice, and practice it.
May we know community, and live into its promise.
May our resistance be creative, and enduring.
May our loving be bold, and also tender.
May our kids be kids.  (May our adults be kids sometimes, too...)
May every family, and every individual, be strengthened for the journey ahead.  
Strengthened... and held.
May you know health.  And rest.  
And Beauty.  And Love.
May you know yourself beloved.
May you remind others that they are, too.
That they belong.  That we all belong.
May we strive for a world that makes this fact obvious.  
May we each become subborn reminders of Love's lasting promise to this weary world.
And may our faith be manifest in every moment, in every loving choice we make.
It matters.  It all matters.
Amen.

Happy New Year, friends!  Know that I am grateful for you, and that I'm rooting for you!  As are so many here at UUSGS...

We have some exciting things on tap for 2026.  Lots of shared ministry.  Worship Associates are getting going again.  Beacons, too.  We'll be digging deep on social justice all year long, with guests, dialog, and more.  We're producing The Prom in March, which feels important and fun.  The Solstice planning group is considering some regular gatherings.  And we'll continue work on our physical space, including the kitchen and bathrooms.  Soulful Supper will remain on hold for a bit as we sort things out in the kitchen... but we can look forward to our community meal getting up and running again, too.

All of this is profoundly hopeful stuff.  As we studied all month in December... when the world feels hopeless, there is a better way we can be hopeful.  When national news gets you down, there is often something to be done locally.  This will likely be a theme this year.  

I'm glad to be in it with you.  

Love will prevail!!

J