Minister’s Letter — January 2007

Dear Friends,

It’s a bit of a surprise when the old calendar comes to an end and it’s time to hang up a new one. It hardly seems possible that all those days, so empty and abundant just a year ago, have now been used up. Alas, it is true. To an electronic calendar -the kind you find on computers and cell-phones - all years are equal, just one screen among many. There is no sense of transition, nothing like the act of taking down a kitchen calendar stained with the year’s events, the months dog-eared and paper-clipped, the days pasted over with stick-on reminders for dental appointments and the dogs’ heartworm pills.

A calendar like that is full of emendations and erasures and crossings-out, a record of changes of plan and purpose. If only the past were as easily emended.

But if there’s any fixing to be done, it will have to be done in the future. That never seems quite as apparent as it does on New Year’s Day. Of all the holidays on the calendar, this is, in some sense, the most secular one, a holiday open to whatever we choose to make of it. The day acknowledges no presidents or heroes or movements or births or deaths. It merely signifies the turning of the year and your own place in time.

We may not think so consciously about it, but New Years Day makes it clear that the year is a vessel full of only so many days and that one’s life is a vessel full of only so many years. Seen that way, a new calendar naturally looks like a moral proposition.

It occurs to nearly everyone, sooner or later, to wonder why we measure out our lives in years. Some might say there are astronomical and cultural reasons for this. But are those reasons good enough? The fact is that in the strange business of being human, nearly the strangest thing of all is the consciousness of time. How can a year seem so short and so long all at once, like the one that just ended?

Looking ahead, it’s possible to say that the coming year, 2007, will contain 365 days. It’s impossible to say, from here, just how long they’ll take. Who knows? Between our personal lives–all the unexpected and planned events, new found friends, lost relationships that will inevitably take place–and the unpredictable occurrences in a glorious and violent world–who knows how this year will evolve? But we do have each other. And perhaps, that is all we need, as we continue to care for each other, our children and our families, serve the larger community, and work to make our Fellowship a worthwhile and centering experience in all the days and years to come. Isn’t that why we come to the Fellowship? To help make those 365 days a bit more meaningful and purposeful in every way? I think so.

One leaf turned this year was my 16th year as your minister. Needless to say the days and years during that time have been some of the most rewarding, challenging and fulfilling ones in my life. The days have been richly filled. This year, I look forward to more of the same, but with an even greater vision for a welcoming, charitable, ministering, teaching, singing, justice-seeking community of good human beings. I love you all.

Jim Covington