Welcome 2025

How have you kept track of your 2024 days – on a frig calendar, on your phone or ipad, or like me in a day -by -day diary or journal?

My 2024 diary was quite handsome, not very big, with a cover that is reminiscent of a medieval manuscript and a toning marker ribbon, as well as a dinky little fold in the back cover just right for storing reminder cards for the doctor, my current hairdresser, the car mechanic and other essential services.

The dates and times, the names, the abbreviations in my diary, are shorthand for the stories they hold. 11am coffee with Teresa was way more than coffee. It was a safe place to talk about the concerns we have for our adult children. Chiropractic appointments eased my arthritic joints and wriggly spine, reminding me of God’s physical healing in another’s hands. There are due dates for bills, wrapped in a silent prayer of gratitude that there is enough money to cover whatever is owing. A cryptic single word, Sydney, spoke of a long-anticipated trip that didn’t live up to expectations. It was like Emmaus all over again, “I had hoped, but . . . “   The older I get the more often those words could fill in the spaces in my diary. 

Words from the Edge is 7 years old now. During those years I have dared to write about everyday things, to explore them at a deeper level, to move into their heart. As the only experience I can talk about with any validity is my own, I write as a woman, an Australian, a parent, a lay person and a Catholic.  I want my readers to recognise something of their own story, to glimpse the God-speak it holds.

There’s an old story that goes like this; A God searcher said to a wise man, “I have travelled a great distance to listen to the Master but I find his words quite ordinary.” And the wise man (or was it a woman) said, ”Don’t listen to his words. Listen to his essage.”  Maybe you are asking the same question. “How does one do that?” the response was, “Take hold of a sentence that he says. Shake it well till all the words drop off. What is left will set your heart on fire.”

Now it might be a while since you read the Bible or heard a Jesus story. Every few weeks this year Words from the Edge 2025 will revisit a few words or a nearly forgotten story from the New Testament, looking at it from the perspective of what’s happening in our everyday life and the wider world, right now. If your Scripture memory dates back to school days, you might get a surprise at how relevant Jesus can be in 2025.

As 2024 comes to an end I want to say thank you to all who have read my words this year, passed them on to others and agreed with, or sometimes questioned them. I greatly appreciate your responses.

Like you, my year has had its share of joys and woes, challenges and unforgettable bits, and for all of it I say, “Thank you God.”

As 2025 unfolds may the mystery that is God enfold you,

the wisdom of God touch into your own,

the wonder that is God be always at your fingertips

and the love of God flow through the ordinary of your days.

Judith (Judith@judithscully.com.au)