Thanks

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

- Heb. 11:1

This weekend we'll celebrate New Year's Eve - the closing of one chapter in our story and the opening of another. It's one of those in-between moments, which makes it an excellent time to pause and reflect on the in-betweenness of our very lives.  

Our vision as a church is: to be a radically welcoming community on a journey toward Jesus, joining him in the renewal of all things.  To be on a journey means we have not yet arrived.  To join Jesus in his work of renewal acknowledges things are not yet set right.  So we embrace the tension between what is and what we long for, and let the tension itself draw us closer to Jesus, together.

Perhaps you'd like to read this poem over with Jesus this morning; perhaps you'd like to add a few notes of tenacious thankfulness from the in-between places in your own life.

 

Thanks

BY W. S. MERWIN

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

 

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

 

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

 

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is