In the financial realm, 2026 is just ten days old. It is still a newborn in many respects but is aging quickly. Midnight on December 31 may have signified that 2025 has ended on the calendar but lingers in a kind of fiscal purgatory until the books are closed. The transition calls us to reconcile our accounts, audit the work of the year before, and determine how to forge ahead by riding a positive wave or charting a new way forward if the results aren’t what we had hoped for.

A new year places together an ending and a beginning. It is a time of reflection and gratitude, as well as projection and hope. Henri Nouwen writes that the ultimate earthly beginning (birth) and the ultimate earthly ending (death) remind us of the assessments of life from opposite perspectives.

Is nothing more precious and hope-filled than physically holding a newborn baby? It is a multisensory experience that connects with our whole being…looking into the face of innocence, listening to nascent sounds, feeling the touch of little hands, taking in that baby smell when you kiss their forehead, and the limitless possibilities of a new life. From the opposite pole, is nothing more sobering and final than witnessing the death of a loved one at their bedside? A last word, a final breath, a serene silence, a concluding kiss on the forehead, the look of a completed life.

These descriptions represent beginnings and endings at their best and most comprehensible. But in the brokenness of our world and of human life, beginnings and endings can also be unexpected, jolting, and tragic. How then do we comprehend, process, and accept a beginning or ending that is anything but precious?

Nouwen depicts that life is conceived in vulnerability…that community is often strengthened through shared struggle…that the essence of our humanity is knowing and caring for each other’s wounds. It is through our spiritual choices that we will either mutually benefit from a place of grace and gratitude or add to our burdens in bitterness and blame. These choices can maintain dignity or toss it aside in disgust. To have faith is to sustain a vision that will see the sliver of light in the darkest of corners when life seems to present nothing but uncertainty.

As the Year of our Lord 2026 reveals itself, we cannot know what the future holds. But Nouwen says the art of living is to enjoy what we can see instead of being afraid of what remains in the dark. The Lord will always provide enough light to take the next step, and by faith we may be surprised just how far we can go!

May we be able to see the light Christ shines for us and be that Light shining for others.
 

Rev. Dr. David Weatherly
President/CEO