Carrying the Light Forward
A butterfly cocoon carries a thousand stories.
Sue Monk Kidd’s midlife memoir When the Heart Waits offers just such a cocoon—one that holds insight, longing, and connection—on our Utah trip—Journey Into Grace. The butterfly’s transformation, the central metaphor of her spiritual unfolding, reminds us that beautiful things are born in darkness. From womb to tomb, light and life emerge.
This metaphor is carrying me into the new year.
2025 has been a season of deep reflection and quiet building—and often of uncertainty that has asked for patience, trust, courage… and yes, grace.
Our world is changing faster than at any other time in known history. I feel it viscerally, even when words fail me. At times, life feels like the mucky, formless goo inside the cocoon—nothing solid to grasp, and yet brimming with promise.
And still, during this season of Light—when much of the world celebrates Christ, God With Us—I feel renewed hope. Even certainty.
I carry God within, where no man can reach, as Viktor Frankl reminds us in Man’s Search for Meaning.
The darker moments of this past year have anchored me to a deeper knowing: my life is visioned and lived from within, not tossed to and fro by the world’s stories. I can—and must—practice mental vigilance over this precious inner world. Over our shared world. Over myself.
We experience what we consistently think about. When we focus on chaos or lack, we generate more of the same, finding ourselves on a relentless treadmill our world has been running for far too long.
Yesterday morning, in a quiet hotel restaurant somewhere in Tennessee, I struck up a conversation with a dear older gentleman. When I asked how he was, he simply pointed to the hat on his head. It read: Count Your Blessings. Indeed!
As we spoke of family, faith, and a changing world, I realized that while our understandings of God may differ, the spirit with which we love does not.
I’m carrying that conversation into the new year—with a renewed commitment to connection, unity, and joy. I see the light. I feel my wings unfurling… and they are beautiful.
I hope you’ll walk beside me this year—gathering clarity and strength from our spiritual nature, known to and nurtured by the Divine.
May we see the world through forgiving eyes. May we question the assumptions we make of one another. May we remain curious, tender, and fiercely protective of the humanity that binds us.
Let us gather in gentle, open collaboration and patient expectation as we birth a new way of being.
Love is watching.
Waiting.
And ready to lead us.
Wishing you and yours a beautiful season of healing light.
With love, always,
Jen
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