The Board, staff and volunteers of the Pacific Northwest District wish you all the best for 2013!
May our lives be dedicated to the work of justice-making for all peoples and our fragile planet, beginning with the cultivation of peace in our own hearts.
May we be blessed as we turn towards better ways of being and doing each day, renewing ourselves in each moment.
O God of Creation, as we turn the pages of our lives and enter a new year, help us to hold well our past, preserving what is precious and useful in our lives, nursing with compassion our unhealed wound—the injuries, slights and resentments that if untended will fester and give us spiritual dis-ease, and letting go of the once wonderful but now no longer appropriate or necessary habits, opinions, relationships, judgments and egotistic complaints that stifle growth and disapprove of joy.
O Mystery of Tomorrow, as we walk forward into the unlived world of possibility and not yet, help us nurture a spirit of wonder and wonderment so that we may meet each day with hopeful, not fearful, expectation. Only with an open heart and a spirit of wonder shall we be able to welcome Life’s many and minute blessings and gifts and soft kisses—shafts of light, hints of cinnamon, compliments from co-workers, awareness of desire, the softness of infants and the crustiness of waitresses in diners, moments of quiet, and the honking of geese. Let us test our fears and acknowledge our anxieties without giving them permission to embalm us.
O Spirit of Love and Life, as we set down one year and begin anew, infuse us with your life-giving power that heals, unites and transforms all that is wounded, sundered and seeking fresh roots and wings. On the cusp of the turning year, in the words of the old Shaker hymn, we pray that “to turn, turn will be our delight, ‘till by turning, turning we come ’round right.” Shalom. Salaam. Namaste and Amen.