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Among the definition of Intention is one from medicine: “The healing process of a wound.” The more common usage of the word is:  an aim or plan.[1]  In the prior usage, the word deals with whether or not a wound has enough material to heal from connections of tissue and skin.  Is everything touching, are there any gaps?  In the latter definition we are speaking of our commitment to an outcome.  What do I want to happen?  It often arises when there is a gap between what we want and what we are living.  It is our resolve to see that gap healed.  But sometimes we have to admit, the gaps are wide and difficult to bridge.  Intention can seem a thin tool with which to do the hard work of building connections.

Our January theme of Intention is well timed.  We can all benefit from asking ourselves about how we are living and what we really intend.  Life is too often so fast paced and demanding that we can easily forget what we really intend in life.  In fact, we can go years without giving it much thought at all.  And all the while, we feel the emotions that always measure what it costs not to be yourself and not to live as we really want to live.

This January and throughout our winter, with the help of Rev. Sue Sinnamon and our adult formation programs, we want to go deeper.  Winter is a great time to do this important work.  The cold and darkness remind us to turn inward and take stock of ourselves.  Even if you live a busy life caring for children or others, we hope to help you connect with the opportunity to go deeper into the question of what you intend.

We hope we can all connect with our aims, strengthen our understanding, clarify intention and  connect with the steps that lead us closer to the personal alignment of life and values.  It always feels best.  So we are putting out the call to examine what we intend through the month of January.

What do you intend with your life and your living?  What is the plan you live and ends your serve?  How do you assess the connections around old wounds or recent injury? What is your plan for wholeness?

I look forward to our conversations on these foundational questions and to your answers to this question:  What is your intention?

Gratefully,

Rev. Jeanne

[1] Oxford English Dictionary

Dear Ones,

Hope. Is the Possible, Positive?

In the twelfth month of the calendar months, we come to HOPE.
It slips in, in time for possible neglect amidst preparation for holidays and travel. Our calendars fairly begging us not to add one more thing. Our minds juggling how to get the work done and still take time off. Our disposition a bit rushed for thinking about a word that seems to do what we would rather not . . . to look outside ourselves and believe that the possible is positive.

Few of us are encouraged to take time thinking about what we hope for. We are assumed to hope for personal happiness and the happiness of family and friends but how much time do we take to reflect on “what does make me happy” and do I know how to be hopeful about that? Hoping, for many of us, is little more than a thin wish for unspecific good. We may not even imagine we should waste time on any sort of hoping.

Yet we know that the greatest psychological predictor of perseverance, the helpmate of happiness, even the support for compassionate living are rooted in our capacity to hold hope, even when it may be elusive. That makes hope the midwife of living well. Hope is no lightweight. It deserves our attention.

I invite you to give yourself a valuable gift this December.

Take time to consider hope in your life.

Think more deeply about it than you may yet have done. Look at how it is or is not working in your life. Take it apart, so that you may put it back together in a way that makes sense and life more valuable and true for you. Talk about it seriously and ask whether what you hope for has real roots and real branches upon which to grow your life well.

Your investment in hope, a real, adult and grounded hope, will nourish you and renew your self-understanding. It will make clear what is foggy. It can increase the peace.

For all of us, that is what I am hoping.

Rev. Jeanne