Beginnings & Endings Friday Five

 This Celtic Mandala represents life, noting how days and years turn from one to another. As we have stepped from 2008 into 2009 some of us look back with joy and others with saddness; probably most of us with a mixture of the two.

Sally says:  As we look back we may come to understand how God has worked in and through us in joy and sadness. How we have grown against what may seem impossible odds. As we look forward we may do so with expectation, and we may do so with fear and trembling. As we look back and forward in New Year's liminality I offer you this simple yet I hope profound Friday Five in two parts:

First list five things that you remember/ treasure from 2008

* RevGals Big Event 1.0 on the high seas!

* Visiting Songbird in Maine

* The RG Virtual Advent Retreat

* Ken getting his new motorcycle, which he LOOOOOVES

* My first motorcycle rally in Galveston

Then list five things that you are looking forward to in 2009

* Settling down with a full work team, finally!

* Being in a new building, more centrally located on campus

* RG Big Event 2.0 in the desert!

* Hearing my sweet husband sing in British cathedrals this summer

* Maybe a meetup with British RevGals then!

As you read one anothers blogs today I challenge you to leave a word of encouragement and pause to pray for each member of Revgals as we step into a New Year. I leave you this New Year Blessing from the Iona Community:

We stand to face the future:

God behind us in the past

Christ before us; the way ahead;

Christ beside us in this moment;

Christ beneath us in our weakness;

Christ above to shield us-

beneath the shadow of his wings we are safe;

Christ between us to bind us in the unity of his love;

Christ in us equipping us with his all sufficient grace.

Thus armed and guided, and protected we face the new year.

Now we arise and go forth on the journey before us,

knowing that, where Christ leads, life is a journey home.

Therefore we travel in faith, in hope, and in love,

in the name of the Father/ Mother, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

May the blessing of God

be upon us

all this year

and into eternity.

Amen.