God of new beginnings and endings and all moments in between be with us this coming year. Through the waters of baptism you name us beloved – you confer our identity as your beloved children. May this identity grow and be shaped richly as we journey with you. May ‘beloved’ flow to the deep places of our hearts and being and may we embrace deeper understandings of our identity. May we be open to how you reveal yourself to us and shape and transform us as your holy called people.
As we embrace this new year beginning, may we relearn lament and strive for joy. May we show up with courage and faithfulness for our lives and our callings as your people. May we be restored and renewed, the wilderness places becoming our cathedral and our altar.
As we embrace this new year beginning, may we say good-bye to the things that do not serve us – the selfishness, the fear, the illusions of control, the bitterness, the doom-scrolling, the self-pity, the martyr complex, the us-and-them fire stokers.
As we embrace this new year beginning may we say hello to wisdom, to kindness, to justice, curiosity, wonder, goodness, generosity, possibility, peace making.
As we embrace this year we pray for the sick, those who grieve, and those struggling to hold onto hope amidst isolation and loneliness.
We also pray for our Households of Faith.
Good and gracious God, throw open the doors of our lives to the disruptive, wild, healing Holy Spirit. May this be a year of unclenched hands and new songs, of vaccines and reunions, of good food and laughter, of kind endings and new beginnings. May we be given a mustard seed of faith knowing it will be enough. All this we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.