A year like no other

September 2019 seems a long time ago. So much has changed over the past twelve months. And yet as September 2020 begins a great deal seems much as usual. Education is to the fore as schools and universities resume teaching. Climate protests are again underway. Brexit rumbles away in the background. As one nineteenth century French writer observed 'the more it changes, the more it's the same thing.'

Much has changed across the world in the past year. COVID-19 has forced all of us to adapt and alter our way of life to manage the pandemic. As September begins there is yet more change to absorb. While some would welcome a return to the old ways, others hope to hold onto what seems change for the better in some areas. We are caught between nostalgia for the familiar and a yearning for something new to happen. Time will tell how that tension will resolve at both the personal and the national levels.

Whatever comes to pass in the months ahead, the Christian tradition teaches us that God is always faithful to the whole creation. The tension between continuity and change is embedded in the biblical record. God is both the rock on which we build and the divine power that moves to transform the creation. We watch in anticipation and wait in hope to see what God will do in our lives and in our world in the coming year.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:19