1. Winter Holidays

From Hanukkah Lights Congregation Beth El

We gather in the chill of winter solstice, finding warmth from each other, nourishing hope where reason fails.

Grateful for small miracles, we rejoice in the wonder of light and darkness and the daring of hope.

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For so the children come

And so they have been coming

Always in the same way, they come

born of the seed of man and woman

No angels herald their beginnings

No prophets predict their future courses.

No wise men see a star to show where to find the babe that will save humankind.

Yet each night a child is born is a holy night,

Fathers and mothers—

sitting beside their children’s cribs

feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning.

They ask, "where and how will this new life end?

Or will it ever end?

Each night a child is born is a holy night—

A time for singing.

A time for wondering,

A time for worshipping.

These winter holidays, as with solstice celebrations, are geared towards finding hope in a time of darkness.

As you approach these winter holidays, do you find yourself turning towards or away from hope? What are the sources of light for you?

(note: likes and wishes is where people can express their needs about the group by answering the question of what they liked about the session (or sessions) or what wishes they have for the future of the group.)

Let us therefore praise winter, rich in beauty, challenge and pregnant negativities.

--Greta Crosby

Today

Let me live fully and love completely

Let me honor and celebrate others and myself

So that the best of what lies within might coe forth

And let me be present enough in the world around me

To choose love over fear.

--Claudia Horwitz

What a long time it can take to become the person one has always been! How often in the process we mask ourselves in faces that are not our own. How much dissolving and shaking of ego we must ensure before we discover our deep identity—the true self within every human being that is the seed of authentic vocation....I first learned of vocation growing up in the church. I mean the idea that vocation, or calling, comes from a voice external to ourselves, a voice of moral demand that asks us to become someone we are not yet—someone different, someone better, someone just beyond our reach....

Today I understand vocation quire differently—not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice "out there" calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth.

As we start the New Year, who is speaking louder, the voice "out there" or the voice "in here"?

If "authentic vocation" isn’t about a job but rather about who we are and what we do, are there ways you would like to move towards greater authenticity this year?

We stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving stunning power in our hands.

--Kathleen McTigue