Fresh Starts / Chrismas Day 8

New Years day, the new beginning.

A month ago I copied, for some of my UU friends, a New Yorker article about an odd, new, growing church in Danbury CT. The founding pastor is an MBA who has studied churches that grow, not because he wants to be leader of a large business, but because he wants to help people where traditional religions have been too burdened by traditions or texts to respond.

In January, just after New Year’s Day, he does a series on fresh starts. It’s the best time for getting the word out inviting new people. He wants to create in his church an informal, relaxed atmosphere, and to deal with the problems of everyday life. It turns out that the adults who are most open to a new church are people in transition (new job, a move) and those in pain, from, say, a broken marriage, financial trouble, or substance abuse. Fresh start, apply here.

Fresh starts make sense with support. In this article, we learned that it helps for a church to be larger, if only because it then has the numbers to launch a variety of small affinity groups to foster a sense of support and belonging, various groups for, say, blended families, for religious refugees, for people addicted to substances. Fresh starts.

Rebecca reminded me that she misses the fresh start of the beginning school year. Oddly, the Christian calendar has a third fresh start, the beginning of Advent, just after Thanksgiving, the Sunday when the themes turn toward waiting, watching, preparing for a new birth.

The fresh start that I need: I hope to be more intentional in handling time, to accomplish more, to give more (both to family and to my other callings). Also, I hope to swing back into enjoying my body, swimming, skiing, stretching out in Yoga, more automatic with less thinking, fewer false starts. These resolutions may stick. They would make me happier if they do.

When I asked Marin if she had any resolutions, she just chuckled. She’s an occupied nation with few civil liberties at this point. "Pepita" won’t let her find any comfortable reclining position, interrupts her sleep, kicks, punches, the whole nine yards. We’re five weeks out. That’s when she’ll get a new start, better use of time (she’ll be off work) and a better use of her body. She goes from being a domicile to being a food factory, a step up.

If we had the ability to make more than resolutions, to make outcomes, it would be for a safe birth. I think we’re both getting a little disquieted about delivery. Marin’s hoping for a VBAC, vaginal birth after caesarean. We’re both longing for things to go well, our emotional lives are starting to revolve around it. Though it’s hard to make the connection between the daily reality of Matteo and this new, silent, lifelong partnership sailing toward us, weather permitting, just over the near horizon.