I have been very conscious of ‘end times’ and endings today.  Regardless of the outcome of today’s elections, they always represent as much an ending as a beginning.  Dear Lord, how I pray there is some end in sight to the fear and despair that has caught us in what feels like a death grip.

As I pulled into the parking lot at Holy Comforter this morning, the wind was whipping around, tearing leaf after leaf after leaf from the trees around me.They couldn’t even settle down to rest in peace, the wind blew too strong and stirred them up repeatedly. The air was burdened with humidity as the rain waited as long as it could to fall. Before my very eyes, autumn ushered out the growing season; soon, another liturgical year, and a month after that, yet another calendar year will end. I used to be so scared of endings. Now, I am more convinced than ever that endings make room for something new I had not even imagined possible.  May the endings we have ahead be beginnings like God plans for us, if we are to believe Jeremiah, plans for our welfare and not for harm, to give us a future with hope.