As the events of Christmas week are fading into the distance and those of the New Year are moving into focus, I have finally had the time to reflect on what is often the frenzy that is Christmas Eve. The snow that was predicted did, indeed, arrive though not to the debilitating degree that was expected. Most people still made it out for both afternoon and evening worship services. Parties still happened though the traveling from place to place took more patience and time.

When I think back on Christmas Eve, one of my favorite memories is of our labyrinth service which is held amid candlelight and quiet music. People of all ages showed up this year for this more contemplative service of poetry and carols. Nearly 50 people walked their prayers while gently singing familiar songs, stopping to gaze upon the beautiful art that surrounds the room or squeeze the hand of a fellow walker, a prayer companion.  As I watched the different people slowly make their way around this ancient prayer path, I began to notice their varied walking rhythms…..some slow and deliberate…..others quicker and confident. Still others made smooth, dancelike movements as their bodies twisted and turned in the circuitous path. All these individual ways of walking were also affected by several small children who moved among and around the adults. Their energy provided a certain electricity that added something special to this particular Christmas Eve celebration. At one point almost all the people were on one side of the labyrinth at the same time, something I don't think I've ever seen before. It was as if they all needed to be close, to walk their prayers together and not alone.

We are coming to the end of not only a year but a decade. It is a decade that has held the joys and sorrows, challenges and successes of any collection of years. And yet, this decade began with the events now known simply as 9/11 and those days and all they held have shaped the years that followed. We carried into the successive years the vulnerability and wounds we experienced in the early part of this ten year cycle. I heard a commentator today refer to this a 'the lost decade'. His implication was that we have spent so much time trying to recover, repair and prevent another act like 9/11 from happening that we have wandered in the wilderness instead of making any particular progress.

Lost? I'm not sure if I completely agree but it is worth some further thought as we reflect on the ending of this year, this decade. Certainly 9/11 has shaped us but have we been lost because of it? This concept will give me something to ponder as I move through the snowy days at the end of this decade. But for now, at least, I will remember those people carrying their prayers on their faces as they walked a path traveled by other pray-ers for thousands of years. Each step,each sole laid down, represented a hope, a hurt, a promise, a prayer for what has happened or is yet to be. They were individuals, yes, but they held the collective energy representative of a people who wake every day to a new day, a gift as great as any. And in the walking, in the praying, they….we...walk to solve whatever problem, whatever challenge is before us. And in the walking, in the solving, we are held by a Love that will not let us go. And that for me is one of the greatest reasons to know that, even when it seems like the wilderness, I will not be lost forever.