Dear friends at North Ferrisburgh, 

This is the Christian season of Epiphany, which means "God is revealed."  It begins on January 6, the day which traditionally marks the Magi's visit to the baby Jesus.  The season of Epiphany continues until the beginning Lent, which this year is the last Wednesday in February. 

During this season I return, year after year, to the poem "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed.  Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is smeared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

In all the struggle and brokenness of this world, God's Holy Spirit still hovers with love and light.  Where have you found signs of God, these days?  When have you sensed "the dearest freshness, deep down things"?

Peace,

Pastor Barb