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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rev Lucy Winkett

Good morning.

On a social media platform towards the end of last year, a short video was inexplicably gaining millions of views. It was a video that asked the question ‘what is going to happen on 5th January’. Which is today. It’s never wise or, actually possible of course, to predict the future with any certainty. And there is much wisdom in the spiritual teaching common to many religious traditions, that the past and the future are to be left to themselves because the only reality we know fully is now, today. But it is a helpful thought to remind ourselves that we are living today the future that someone else imagined. Our life as actually lived today is inextricably linked with the day that others imagined, or hoped this to be. In that sense, whatever happens today, is a gift of time that others in the past perhaps wished they could have. It’s an illusion to think that our lives are simply ours to possess, and our time is somehow earned by us to spend how we want. We live in each other’s lives, not only in the present but linked with the hopes of the past and the unknown happenings of the future.

And this shared life, human community, has meaning beyond the day to day conversations or transactions we find ourselves in. We live interdependent not only with each other as people in the past, present and future, but with all that lives in creation on the planet we share.

God of heaven and earth; Help us know deep within our souls that we are not alone, that we are connected with all who live and have lived. Help us to listen to the voices of Creation who surround us without and within, and give us peace as we make our way through these winter days.

Amen.