It’s daybreak and the winter sun is rising on the horizon. It has been rising this way every morning as I get ready for my day, seeping red and orange through the textured windowpanes as it gives light to the day. These days, it is cutting through the darkness of night and splashing through my window and across my mirror sometime between 7 and 7:30am. It’s the prefect time and every morning now, as the light bursts through the window and splashes colours across my mirror before I leave home, this is my cue to pause. It is my reminder that no matter how bleak last evening or the morning’s breaking news may be, I am here, I am awake, breathing and alive. I’ve been given one more chance to live again, to lead again, to walk through the world as I’ve promised myself with love, courage and wisdom. It is an opportunity to ask myself again:
What world do I want to live in?
What world do I want my children and theirs to inherit?
What is the future I want to be a part of?
What do I want most of all at this time?
I know that as the year ends, with my annual ritual of reflection on faith and nesting with family, I am craving more of what this season symbolizes to the world—Peace, Love, Hope, Joy.
Peace
I want more than anything the gift of peace.
Wars—of weapons and words—are not healing us. The wars are not saving us.
How do we live in the now?
How do we heal the devastating loss of life, displacements, traumas, hurts, and pains of these times?
How do we find a way to co-exist across the polarizations and chasms we face?
How do we return to a love for all of humanity?
Love
Where do we find compassion, empathy?
Where now do we access love for all our neighbours so that we can honour every human being’s right to live in freedom and with dignity?
Where do we look for reminders to love the planet that sustains us, loving ourselves enough to let go of self-destructive behaviours and systems?
Where is the love?
Hope
Do I dare hope for better days?
Can I be hopeful in the face of ongoing planetary and human destruction?
Is there hope on the other side of these sober realities?
Joy
Why be joyful in a time of despair?
What does joy look like in this era?
How might we spread joy as an access to healing and forward movement?
Where are the joyful places in these times?
…
The blood orange sky beckons.
It reminds me that all of these: peace, love, hope and joy are worth modelling as an antidote to all that we have been living with and through.
The dancing of the hues of colour on the mirror remind me that there has been blood and loss, but there is also hope for a better future.
So this morning, l stare at the light and I choose again the hope of a rising horizon.
I don’t know what it looks like, but I know I want to be part of fighting for that future.
To each and every one of you, I hope these questions stir up your deepest longings too and I send warmest wishes for more peace, love, hope and joy on the horizon ahead.
Welcome 2025.