Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Sylvia L. Howe (adapted)
I bid you welcome on this first Sunday of the New Year.
Like Janus we gather with part of us looking backward
and part of us looking forward.
We gather on the edge of the new year
saddened by our losses,
cherishing our joys,
aware of our failures,
mindful of days gone by.
We gather on the cusp of this new year
eager to begin anew,
hopeful for what lies ahead,
promising to make changes,
anticipating tomorrows and tomorrows.
Let us join in a celebration of life,
knowing that life includes good and bad,
endings and beginnings.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point.) Words by Cliff Reed
We gather on this first Sunday of the year
to renew our flame of love and fellowship
in hope of better days to come for us
and everyone on earth.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which the clouds
of war, poverty, and climate change hover,
and help us to make a difference,
starting where we are, with what we have.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
May we be grateful for the freedoms we have
and respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
victims of violence and war,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Story by Kay Millard
In the village lived a very old lady. She was older than anyone else in the neighbourhood. No-one could remember anyone living to such a great age. She had seen more years come and go than anyone else could imagine.
She remembered when cars were very rare. She remembered when there was no television, only the radio – which she still called the wireless. She remembered when there were shops in the village – a bakery, a butcher’s, a greengrocer, and of course a Post Office – instead of the Expresso Supermarket off the roundabout on the bypass. She was a very interesting old lady to talk to about her memories and had been interviewed by someone who collected tales of past days.
And yet, the old lady did not live in the past. She kept her eye on what was happening in the world. She noted new inventions, but she had seen so many in her lifetime that she had stopped being surprised by them. After all, she had been born when aeroplanes had been flimsy things that could barely cross the Channel, but lived to see a man walking on the moon, and what could possibly beat that?
Nevertheless, each year, on New Year’s Eve, the old lady made a list of things she would like to see happen in the coming year. Although her hand was a little shaky, her writing was always clear. She wrote:
- I want to see peace throughout the world
- I want to see everyone with enough to live on and able to enjoy the blessings of life
- I want to see all children happy and secure
- I want to see all those who are ill or in pain given the best medical treatment
- I want to see everyone having an education that makes the most of their abilities
Then she lit a candle and said: “Until I see these things I shall go on praying for them.” If you go to the village, you will find that she is still there, praying for all these things. And that she will have written her list, and lit her candle, a few days ago.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from New Year Predictions by Kate McKenna
I predict that some of the next 365 days will be sad. That there will be days on which you will cry more than you laugh.
And I predict that some of them will be filled with happiness, and that you won’t know from day to day which it is going to be.
I predict that someone you love, or like, or admire, or wanted to get to know better, will die. I predict that for some of you this will be someone very close to you, and a bit of your heart will break, and that for some of you it will be more remote, and there will be a passing sadness only, but that whichever it is you will, for a short while, feel more in touch with your own mortality.
And I predict that babies will be born, and that one or more of those births will impact on your life in some way, even if it’s a very minor way.
I predict that there will be some days where you feel so healthy that you will think you could move mountains, and other days where you will feel that lying in bed is too much effort for your poor head and your weary bones.
I predict that some days you will feel loved and popular and supported and upheld.
And I predict that there will be other days where you will feel lonely and like your friends aren’t near enough, or supportive enough.
Prayer by Cliff Reed
God of our inmost hearts, we turn to you
at the start of another year.
No one knows what it will bring, and we
make our plans in hope, not certainty.
As we set out once more on the journey, we pray
for courage and guidance in the way of love.
Help us to hold to the truth we know, and to
resist the lies and follies that beguile the world.
Open our eyes to see the needs of others,
our ears to hear your call in their unhappiness and discontent.
Make us listen to the Earth and what she has to teach,
for the sake of all your children.
In humility we turn to you, O God. Help us to
make this year a better one than anyone dared hope.
Amen
Reading from New Year Predictions by Kate McKenna
I predict days where you will be the friend who isn’t near enough or supportive enough, and days where you are just the exact friend someone else needed that day.
I predict that one day next year you will get cross with a stranger, one day you will get cross with someone you love, and one day you will get cross with yourself. And I predict that that might, or might not, be the same day.
And I predict that there will be a day where something a stranger does makes you feel like the world isn’t such a bad place after all.
I predict that in a very few weeks spring will happen. And that a few weeks after that there will be summer. And then autumn. And then winter again.
In short, I predict that this next year will be very similar in many ways to other years. It will be a glorious mix of all the things that make up other years, and it will please and annoy us in equal measure.
And I predict, with some confidence, that it will be a year in which we will be offered countless chances to learn, and grow, and shine.
Time of Stillness and Reflection words by Meditation for a New Year by Amanda Poppei (adapted)
My friends, we have arrived.
We are here, in this new year.
We have crossed the boundary of time, into the next year, with all its resolutions and plans and schedules ahead of us.
Let us pause, for just this moment, before we move boldly onward.
Let us pause to hear the breathing of those around us,
to feel their presence in this space.
To know their presence in our lives.
Let us pause to consider the trees, their branches stripped bare,
their elegant architecture on display.
Let us pause to feel the spirit of life and love that ties us to each other, that winds its way through our very bones and settles in our hearts.
[silence]
Before we march forward, armed with resolutions that will shortly be forgotten in the day-to-day of living, let us notice what it is that remains every year, every day. What exists beyond schedules and months, beyond time. It welcomes us to life, not just at the start of the year, but every day. And let us answer . . . Amen.
Musical Interlude I Giorni by Ludovico Einaudi
Address New Year Predictions
Well, 2026 is here. We’ll all have to get used to putting a ‘6’ at the end of the date instead of a ‘5’. As Kate McKenna wrote in her beautiful piece I shared as our second and third readings, the year to come will be full of ups and downs, joys and sadnesses, as season follows season. In short, “this next year will be very similar in many ways to other years. It will be a glorious mix of all the things that make up other years, and it will please and annoy us in equal measure.”
Yet some small, uncertain part of us still longs for certainty. We want to know what is going to happen to us, to our loved ones, in the wider world. Which has spawned an entire industry of prediction pundits, who (more or less scientifically) fill the pages of our magazines, newspapers and social media at this time of year to tell us what they believe is going to happen. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re not. What is dangerous, is to receive what they say as gospel truth, and allow our fears for the future to move us out of our integrity, to affect how we interact with other people.
Why are we all so fascinated with predictions of the future? As a teenager, I used to read my horoscope avidly, not even considering that the same fate was unlikely to happen to one-twelfth of the population within the next seven days. A few years later, I won a professional palm reading in a raffle at Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Church, and was fascinated with the results. The palm reader got some things right – that I would have my first child at 30, and that later in life, I would have trouble with my feet. But I guess those things could apply to very many women.
The thing is, the future is largely outside our control. The only thing I will predict with any certainty, is that we will all be a year older next 4th January. Otherwise, everything is up for grabs. As I said in my service a few weeks ago, we live in a world of constant change. How we deal with change depends partly on how we perceive our own power to manoeuvre in the changing situation. For example, if it is a change we have decided to make ourselves, it is perhaps easier to deal with it or embrace it. But if it is a change we feel has been imposed on us from outside, for example, how we need to live in this world of constant change and conflict, or if we feel powerless, for example, when someone we love has died, then change can be much harder for us.
In fact, the only thing we can control is our reactions to whatever change comes up in our lives. We cannot control very much else, honestly. The Hungarian spiritual writer, Elisabeth Haich, once, wrote, “Life is movement, change, transformation.”
And of course, she’s right. Much though we may hate to hear it, as often as we may kid ourselves that our lives are going on very much the same as they always have, it isn’t true. I’m not the same person as I was yesterday, or last week, last month, let alone last year. Our lives are never predictable, much though we might like them to be.
Because we live in a world where we are always encountering new things – new experiences, new people, new thoughts and ideas, new nudges from the Spirit. And we cannot help being changed by them. It may take us a while, screaming, protesting, and dragging at the hand that is trying to lead us forward, but we’ll get there in the end.
How much better to be open to movement, change, transformation. To embrace it, even… I honestly believe that it is up to us to keep our hearts and minds and spirits open to new experiences, so that we may grow as people. It’s also important to be nice to ourselves, to understand our natural inclination towards the status quo, and not beat ourselves up when we resist movement, change, transformation. And to understand that these things are just as hard for everyone else we know, and not to blame them when they, too, resist.
Letting go of the old can be even more difficult. Many of us find it easier to hold on to old grudges, old hurts, old griefs, preferring to stay behind our armoured souls in case life hurts us once again. It is much more courageous to doff our armour, reveal our vulnerabilities and embrace the new. It is a wonderfully rewarding way to live.
Each of us has been given a brain and a heart to approach the new in a spirit of curiosity, rather than dread. Let us use them as best we can, so that we may grow into the best people we can be. Let us pray to be awake and aware and open to new experiences.
What we can do is to resolve to take the future one step at a time. Like many of us, I guess, I can become disheartened by the sheer volume of what I need or would like or feel I ought to do (you should see my countdown to retirement to do list – it is terrifying!). But then I remember the words of Saadi, the Iranian poet and prose writer from the Islamic Golden Age, which gives me fresh heart: “It is not an art to conquer the world; if you can, conquer a heart.”
It reminded me of the wise words of the Unitarian Universalist minister, Forest Church, who wrote, “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” Honestly, that is the most any of us can do. In other words, we don’t need to “conquer the world” right off the bat in 2026. Changes are made by individual people, doing what they can, starting from where they are, day by day, using the gifts and skills that they have, and being open to change and growth. So my own personal New Year’s resolution for 2026 is to spend the next two months working through that humungous to-do list, so that I am able to do an effective handover to my successors. Had I not written the list, I would be flailing around, terrified by the amorphous amount of stuff that I know needs to be done. The list has broken it down into manageable tasks, which I know I can complete in the time available.
I would guess that all of us (as well as the prediction pundits) could make a depressing list of “things that are wrong with the world.” They might include poverty, war, homelessness, exploitation of the planet, violence, inequality… the list is endless, and depressing. And overwhelming. What can we, as individual little people, do about it all?
The answer, I believe, is in Saadi’s quote, “if you can, conquer a heart.” Use the mind, heart and abilities each of us has been given, to change *one* person’s mind, to pick up *one* piece of litter, to choose to buy *one* eco-friendly bottle of washing up liquid, to sign *one* petition, to attend *one* protest. Then, to further the washing metaphor, rinse and repeat. What I’m saying is, we can all choose to make better decisions, which will improve not only our lives, but also the lives of those around us.
This slow, incremental approach to our lives is, I believe, the only sane one, in the face of an uncertain future. When we are faced with a serious and complicated task, it is human nature to procrastinate, to do that which is easiest, and to ignore that which is difficult and overwhelming. I know this from my own experience. Each time I add a new piece of software to my PC, which I know will ultimately make my life easier, it is such a massive temptation to carry on using the same old, less-efficient software I know so well. Because the struggle to learn how to use the new programme efficiently daunts me.
It is taking that first step, facing up to change in our lives, which is most difficult. Conquering *one* heart is the most difficult. The greatest amount of energy is used when we start moving. From stationary to first step takes more energy (certainly more emotional and spiritual energy) than the following steps. A sort of virtuous feedback loop is set up after that first step, and as we form a new habit, it becomes easier to maintain it.
So if you have made any New Year’s resolutions, which are another way we try to control our lives (but this time, probably a good way), remember that it is the repetition of a new habit that is most important. The more often we repeat a certain action (or do not do an action we want to let go of, like smoking) the easier it becomes. Eventually, the new way of behaving becomes our “new normal” and we can relax into it.
And remember – Done is Better Than Perfect.
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
May we do what we can,
starting from where we are, with what we have,
to make 2026 a better, happier,
more peaceful world for everyone.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
may we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
now and in the days to come.
Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi