Originally published on 12/27/22 at plymouthucc.org/blog

This week between Christmas and New Year’s Day can feel like a weird liminal space. We finished the Advent season of wondering and waiting, but maybe now we wonder and wait for the new year. A new year can mean a new start. For those of us in schools, it means a new semester. And here we are again, in another now-and-not-yet.

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary. For us, this season became even more sacred. My wedding, and everything it embodied, is forever tied to Christmas and the liminal space before the New Year. We got married surrounded by lots of candle light, Christmas trees, and family.

I got a lot of light out of this year’s Christmas. And as we held our candles and sang Silent Night on Saturday evening, the line “all is calm, all is bright,” stuck out to me. I find that a lot of things this time of year are bright – even though it gets dark so early. But what is calm? I love my family, but I would not exactly describe them as calm. I loved my wedding, but that was not a calm event. And I imagine the birthday of the Christ child, lying in a manger, could not have been very calm. In the new year, I’d like to find a lot more calm.

Maybe you will spend some time this week leaning into the liminal space, reflecting on Christmas, waiting and wondering about the new year. I wonder where you are finding light and calm. I pray that both come easily for us in 2023.