Today, it’s finally cold in Massachusetts. On our walk this morning, the ground crunched in a satisfying way; the sky is that deep blue of the north; the ocean is deep blue reflecting the sky; and it was too cold to stand still in the field. The leaves on the plum tree in our front garden are almost all gone, and the few brown and purple ones that remain are crisp with frost.  We had a watery Christmas, a foggy Christmas, actually, with lights gleaming through the mist; the cold today snaps us back into winter. I am so conscious of the challenge to hold the twelve days of Christmas in the wake of the secular waves of holiday-making. We gave up television long ago, and also shopping in malls. We’ve stayed close to the earth here at home, and close to the liturgical rhythms, both in Christian and in Jewish tradition. This year the last day of Hanukkah fell on Christmas Eve. That night, we lit both our Hanukkah candles, and our Christmas candles, flames joining flames in prayers of gratitude and of hope, for the Light that comes into the world in God’s Word.

This morning, on the last day of 2014, all is quiet in the house, like a held breath in the middle of meditation. I am thinking of Thich Nhat Hanh, still in his in-between sleep in the aftermath of his brain hemorrhage.  Last year, at this time, he gave a teaching on making the new year truly new. http://plumvillage.org/news/how-to-make-your-new-year-truly-new/

It seems to me that all our inner and outer life, our thoughts, dreams, visions, daydreams, imaginings, actions, and words are about incarnation, spirit and matter mattering, whether we “are” Buddhist, or Christian, or Jewish. Irenaeus wrote in the third century: “Because of his boundless love, Jesus became what we are that he might make us to be what he is.” Thomas Merton writes of Christmas Day, “today, God the Father makes all things new, in his divine Son, our redeemer…” The newness is continual, and happens in each moment. Happy New Year, and Merry 7th Day of Christmas.