A new year ... a new day ... a new moment. We are always on the threshold of the dawn. Yet our calendars only provide for ONE New Year's Day, ONE Monday per week -- as if we must wait another year -- another week -- to pick up the pieces and put them back together in such a way that life is fresh once more.

I suppose it is a good thing that the way we measure time gives us a starting-over point. For many of us would never even consider leaving the rut if we didn't pass the intermittent ladder that leads up and out.

But what if ... what if we chose to perceive the top of the hour or the first day of any month as a miner sees a vein of precious ore? Follow that vein into the dark hard rock, and you will find treasure after treasure.

A new beginning leads to another -- new opportunities and fresh responsibilities. A "new covenant" is what they called the Christian half of the Bible -- the new deal between heaven and earth. And when we take that New Testament seriously, it will lead us to worlds we never could have imagined.

John Wesley's new deal happened at Aldersgate, while someone read from a 200-year-old book. It was Martin Luther's commentary on the book of Romans. Dry stuff (I've read it). Who'd a thunk it? That such a beginning could occur from literature that had gathered dust for two centuries?

So Happy New Year -- whether it comes in New York Times Square or at the produce section in your local grocery store -- whether it comes at the stroke of midnight or in your car at rush hour. God is making EVERYTHING NEW.

Warm smiles,

Michael