This week in-between Christmas and New Year’s creates a strange feeling of being in suspended animation. The fact that both holidays fall on a Sunday creates, at least for me, an even stranger experience of hovering, not quite able to settle in to the fullness of vacation mode or work mode. Unlike the days of childhood, when the weeks between opening gifts and all the Christmas festivities and the determination to stay awake to watch the new year arrive, this week has had me jumping from one thing to another without a sense of committing to anything. It is mostly an unsatisfying experience.

Of course, the fact that there is no snow on the ground and people are playing golf in Minnesota in December should be enough to create an uneasiness, an inability to focus. Things simply are not the way they are ‘supposed to be.’ The other day my son and I discussed whether or not, once it does snow (please!) it will feel as if we need to have a Christmas do-over. While, of course, this will not happen, my hope is that it simply feels like a cake that had been left without frosting for a while.

Perhaps this strangeness is actually a good way to experience the final week of any year. As we look back at all the things that have happened over the last months, we can find ourselves reliving celebrations and grieving losses. We can marvel at the ways in which, as a nation and as a world, people have risen to amazing feats of courage and strength. We can also be dumbfounded at the pain and suffering humans can inflict on others and this blessed Creation.

As I reflect on this last year, I think my overall experience has been watching people I know and those I read or hear about who have overcome great odds, who have grabbed hope by the horns and ridden it like a bronco rider. I have seen this in those who have dealt with incredible health issues and those who have lost loved ones too soon, which is almost always, isn’t it? I have seen it as person after person rises like a phoenix out of the ashes of unemployment to reach a new place where the light once again beams from their useful, productive eyes. I have watched children learn new things and stand taller and stronger with confidence. And I know others who are battling for their lives.

Each year holds all these experiences and more. Perhaps that is the reason, in this final week, for this state of suspension. We need these days to allow our skin, our brain, our being to move slowly into the fullness of transformation. Like a snake shedding last year’s skin, we gently crawl into the new one which will hold us, protect us, house us for the gifts and challenges of what is yet to be. Charles Lamb, author and essayist, once wrote: “No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam.” And I would respectively add, our common Eve.

So, if you have also been having a similar suspended experience in these final days of 2011, I invite you to simply rest. Rest and reflect, take stock of what has happened in the last twelve months of your precious life. Let go of what is no longer helpful and all of what is hurtful. Hold on dearly to all that makes you smile, that fills your heart with love and joy. Rub this goodness all over yourself as you prepare for the new skin, the new year that is only a few days away. Say a prayer over all the losses and offer gratitude for all there is to celebrate. Allow yourself to hover within the transformation that is yours and yours alone.

We have no way of knowing what the new year will bring. No matter, may we all know we are held by a Gracious Hand.