I often recap previous Unigram columns in my July column, a “church year in review” kind of thing. This isn’t quite the usual month-by-month recap. This time, I’ve woven together excerpts from three previous columns that seem to me to be especially relevant as we reflect on the church year that is ending and look forward to the growth and challenges of the coming year.

We can all learn to be more present for each other and with ourselves, to “hold space.”  One author describes holding space this way: “It means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgement and control.” In short, it’s being present, fully, unconditionally present, without judgment and without trying to fix the person or situation.

When we offer this gift to each other, we can feel safe and supported even when we make what we see as mistakes, especially when we make mistakes. We need the kind of safety that allows us to risk making mistakes. Sometimes, perhaps often, the person for whom we are holding space will make a decision we would not make, and that’s OK too. Others’ decisions aren’t ours to dictate or control.

We can hold space for others only if we are able to give ourselves the same gift. We cannot hold another’s pain unless we can hold our own. We need to take care of our own well-being, to practice self-care, however that looks for us. As one writer says, “It is being present, treating yourself with care, consideration, kindness, compassion and love. Hearing the needs of your body and mind, feeling your emotions, and listening to the yearning of your soul. It’s a way of being, a lifestyle, a profound choice and a stand you take. It’s not a belief system, but is rather a way of being with yourself and meeting your own needs.”

This includes

• Accepting our human imperfections
• Knowing how and when to say “no” and maintaining healthy boundaries
• Knowing when we need to ask for support
• Taking time for stillness and reflection, prayer, or meditation
• Nurturing ourselves, every day, in whatever ways work best for us.

Ours is a community in which people hold space for each other. This is an act of welcome, of love, of grace. We’ll walk together through the changes that this coming church year will bring. Because we’ll walk together, it will be a good journey.

Ours is also a community in which we can tell our stories, openly and without fear. The Listening Sessions we held are a beginning. In them, we were invited to tell our stories, individual and collective. As we tell our stories in an open, nonjudgmental space, new possibilities emerge, which can translate into a life far different than we had imagined possible. As we continue doing so in a variety of ways, we get to write a new ending to our unique story—not fictionalizing it nor changing what’s already taken place, but envisioning a new trajectory that reflects new insights we may not have had previously, new ways of understanding and feeling that point us to new ways of living in the world with each other.

As we move through this coming year, let’s cultivate an attitude of abundance and gratitude.

• We can pay attention, slowing down enough to notice and fully experience what we have.
• We can be both grateful and aware of the welling up of gratitude.
• In both cases, we can remember not to take things for granted.

In December, I wrote about hope. Hope can be problematic: Hope sometimes pulls us out of the present, so that we project our energies into the future, to a goal or aspiration. When we’re doing that, we are less grounded in the present. We’re less focused on living creatively in the present, especially with those aspects of the present we wish were different.

But hope can be very different. Hope can be an antidote to cynicism, hardheartedness, and bitterness. This kind of hope means meeting all that life offers with courage, determination, and openness. It’s the attitude with which we seek to approach all situations, an underlying inclination of our heart. It’s an orientation of that aspect of ourselves in which we seek and find meaning and purpose. We may start out with hope oriented toward a specific outcome, but this is the hope that keeps us going when our hoped-for outcome blurs and fades and recedes into the distance.

This hope allows us to keep going in the face of difficulty. It can provide the determination, the courage, the steadfastness that will see us through whatever it is we need to get through. It’s the kind of hope that gets up in the morning, sees the sunrise or the wilting Indiana humidity, and says “Yes, I will get through today.” This hope allows us to keep going with a positive attitude. This hope keeps plugging along.

As I finished this column, the words of the song Woyaya came to my mind:

We are going,
Heaven knows where we are going,
But we know within.
And we will get there,
Heaven knows how we will get there,
But we know we will.

And we will! In Anticipation,

~Rev. Julia