Blog Post by The Rev. Rob
Beginning. Again.
A New Calendar Year begins,
inviting us to reflect on our lives.
Facing a New Day, a New Year:
What is before us?
How will we enter it?
What we will choose?
As Jesus begins his ministry
(after the death of his cousin, John, “the baptizer”)
he withdraws to Galilee. [Matthew 4.12]
“Galilee” is an Entry, a Portal, a Front Porch.
A place to begin.
Galilee is a place on the margins,
populated with marginalized people.
Those on the fringe of culture, politics, religion.
Those on fringe
are considered insignificant, unimportant,
and overlooked,
if not outright despised, disenfranchised, dismissed.
Jesus went to these people,
sat with them,
listened to their stories,
heard their pain,
absorbed their hurts and disappointments.
Together, they await a new dawn,
a fresh beginning, an awakening.
And then, upon reflection
they get up
from their withdrawal,
from their indecision
from their reflection
and leave
their past, their despair, their emptiness
to enter the new day arising to meet them
to engage their marginal circumstances
to confront the “forces of evil” that
block, prevent and obstruct their path
they begin anew
and discover “the new thing that God was about to do”
in them,
through them.
What are the obstacles obstructing your path, your dreams, your life?
What are your hopes and dreams that God is rooting for you to accomplish?
How will you fulfill your purpose for your life?
Matthew 4:22
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
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A poem by Mary Oliver - “The Journey”
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life that you could save.