I begin this New Year with an attitude of thankfulness; for each of you, for this wonderfully unique and loving community, whom I call family, for all that you do for me and for each other. As I review 2011, its highlights and its challenges, I know that I am, that WE are blessed in so many ways. We said good-bye to some loved ones and friends as they transitioned to a different life. We welcomed new life through birth and new friendships and relationships. The circle of life continues. It ebbs and flows through good times and challenging times. And through it all we have God and we have each other. That truly is something to be thankful for.

The New Year is always a time of reflection as we process events from the past 12 months and prepare for a new and hopeful year. We hope for peace. We hope for economic justice. We hope for growth and healing... We move into 2012 with that hopefulness and also with a wisdom learned from our connection with each other and with the world. Equipped with that wisdom we continue to answer God’s call on our lives – a call to love God, to love neighbor and to make a difference in the world.

Recently at a combined People of Color (POC) and Anti-Racist White Caucus (ARWC) meeting, we chose a church wide theme for this year “Making it Real.” I love this theme because there are visions for me of process and journey and I do love both. Making is an action word that means we are in process, living in the now and the not yet. Real is the authenticity that we read about in scripture, that we sing about in hymns and that we hope for in prayer. Making it Real is a way for us to put legs to the words of our Mission Statement and in our Anti-Racist Declaration. Making it Real is a way for us to live into being the radically inclusive church that we name and claim each and every Sunday.

I hope that you will join with these two caucuses and your pastors this year in Making it Real. It is a call to continue the ministry path we are on and it is also a challenge to go deeper into what that means for our personal lives and for the life of this community. You will hear more about this theme as the year unfolds. I invite you to hear this call as an essential part of your spiritual life, not just a Sunday morning call, but a call that you feel compelled to embrace each and everyday of your life, wherever you are. The educational opportunities, the worship experience – from environment, to Gospel readers and liturgists, to singing praises, to outreach, to serving on committees, to small group study, to special events, to offering our gifts – are all a part of Making it Real. I encourage each of us this year to take seriously the role God is calling you to in this community. We are on this journey and in this process together. Let’s be real with each other, speaking and listening to each others’ stories, sharing each others’ joys and struggles, loving and celebrating each other in our uniqueness.

My prayer for us this year is that God will give us the courage and the insight to celebrate the places of intersections, in and through our differences. That is what Making it Real means to me.

One of my favorite authors is Audre Lorde and so I leave you with this quote from her book, Sister Outsider.  Please be challenged by it.

“What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strengths of our individual identities. And in order to do this, we must allow each other our differences at the same time as we recognize our sameness.”