Hey all – Happy New Year to you! If that’s a bit too insistent (not everyone’s new year is off to a happy start), read it as hopeful, as a sentence that means, “I hope for you a year that includes happiness”. And I do…I do hope that for each and every one of us.

Also, if you would like to know how to help the Miles family through their challenging beginning to the year, see the end of this email for some info about a Meal Train sign up.

Now…about that long-ish subject line. Sometimes, perhaps mostly to amuse myself, I like to deliberately re-frame conventional ways of thinking. For example, it would be typical in many settings for someone to talk about “vision for the new year” at this time of year. You know – “vision casting, future-state thinking” – that sort of thing. Imagine, if you will, me pacing back and forth at the front of the room dressed in some kind of hipster casual outfit, gesticulating skyward as I speak in elevated tones and volume about “Vision 2025!” for The Table. Gotta pump up the troops, and all that.  There’s a context for that I suppose but also it would seem a bit odd at The Table, like it might at a family breakfast table. So I’m not going to do it. Instead, I’m going to share a short film about something called the “evolved nest” – the way that nature nurtures both family and community and some insights we can gain from that – and then reflect a bit on what we already know about what we’re here to do as a community. And then, we can go and do what we are able.

As you may have seen in Jason’s Facebook update, Sara is recovering from her most recent heart intervention and while the progress is good there is a long road ahead. Some folks from other communities who also know and love Jason, Sara, Devon and Zoe have organized a Meal Train to help them and reached out to invite us to collaborate with them. If you want to participate in this way, you can find a link to sign up here. Working together on this can reduce overlap and confusion, and increase the positive results. It’s a lovely idea! Thanks to Cathleen and Rachelle for putting this together, and to Shereen for being the link between caring communities.

We will gather for the first time in 2025 at VA Cafe (171 McDermot) at 10:45 a.m. We’ll livestream the first part of our gathering here.

I’ll see you on Sunday.

Peace,

Tim Plett