January 4: Brush Strokes

A case full of paints equals a box full of possibilities.

By Magdalena I. García

I really don’t get this thing about the New Year. If truth be told, most New Year’s Eves I’ve gone to bed before midnight, simply because I get sleepy around my usual bedtime, and I don’t see the point of staying up when it’s already the next day in Europe or Asia.

But there is something about the New Year that I do like; it’s that whole business of pausing, looking back, and looking ahead. Some people call it making resolutions. So, I have resolved that this year I will not wait to have “finished” pieces to post on the blog. I will post musings. After all, when is something finished?

One of the greatest blessings I received when I was learning to preach—as I was trying to overcome pulpit phobia and its accompanying nausea—was to be told that every sermon is only a brush stroke on the canvas of life: my life, the congregation’s life, the church’s life... It was a tremendously liberating piece of advice, but it’s taken years for it to sink in. I still wrestle with the masterpiece syndrome every time I sit at the keyboard to write a sermon.

So, from now on, you will get just that on this blog...brush strokes. It’s a good discipline for me, and it’s the whole reason I started this blog. I hope and pray that my readers will be as gracious as the congregations that have heard me preach; heck they even pay me and come back week after week! Not a bad gig is you can get it!