Joyce Rupp, a writer, spiritual “mid-wife” and retreat and conference speaker, penned the following, “A New Year’s Meditation.”

As you look back on the year just completed:

1. What name would you give to your journey of the past year? How would you describe it to one of your friends? What image or metaphor would you use to talk about it?

2. What were some of your “epiphanies” of the past year (your discoveries of the Holy One in your midst)? How did you grow because of them?

3. Who were your wise persons? What did they reveal to you? How did this influence your life?

4. Did any of your hopes and dreams become a reality?

5. What was most satisfying about the year? What was least satisfying?

As you look to the year before you:

1. What name would you like your new year’s journey to have? What gifts do you bring with you into the year before you?

2. Do you find any resistance within you? Of what are you most afraid as you enter a new year?

3. What is your greatest need for the coming year?

4. Who do you bring with you for your support and strength as you begin to journey through the year?

5. How is your relationship with the Holy One as you pause on the threshold of the new year’s vast landscape? What is at the heart of your new year’s prayer?

6. What do you hope to contribute to society in this coming year?

As 2007 ends and 2008 begins, I pray that you take some time to reflect on the past year as we welcome a new one. May this New Year be one in which you grow spiritually in ways that you can not imagine!

Grace and Peace,

Steve

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