Driving home from work the other night I listened to the first in this year’s series of Reith lectures delivered by Rutger Bregman, whose excellent book Humankind inspired me several years ago, with its positive perspective on what humanity could be. In the lecture this week, Bregman was less positive than he sounded in his book (and this was before the BBC censored a line), and who can blame him in the year that is 2025? I have not fact-checked his lecture, but at one point he gave some sense of the horror of the war the world has seen this year when he referenced Israel dropping  “the equivalent of six Hiroshima’s worth of bombs on Gaza.” What a deeply horrifying thought that is in a year which our daily news cycle has given so little scope for hope. The United States elected a new president who on day one denied the reality of climate change and whose agenda seems to be replacing the democratic forms of government that have served well for so long with a cruel authoritarianism made in his own image. There are also echoes of Trump in the UK, where right-wing populism has gained a foothold and the racism at the extreme end of anti-immigration rhetoric is becoming more normalised, fuelled to some extent by social media misinformation. 

2025 has been a year when I have heard that sense of diminished hope expressed by people in church and in my work in a university, where high fees and modern day pressures are having a detrimental effect on curiosity. Indeed, in his Reith lecture, Rutger Bregman mentioned the American Freshman survey, which since the 1960s has monitored the values of students in the United States. In the early years students prioritised finding a good philosophy of life on their journey, and making money was lower on the agenda, but today this has apparently flipped and finding a philosophy of life is less important than before. I am not sure whether the same pattern is evident in the United Kingdom, but it feels like many students today are living in the shadows of diminished possibilities. 

I don’t have the answers to any of the above, but as we enter into advent I am reminded that the Christian Christmas story is one of hope being born in a cold cruel world. I am also reminded that to some extent we have to construct our own realities. Perhaps in the grey moments of life we need to seek out the colour a bit more. Perhaps in hard times our friends can also help us see what is good.

With that in mind throughout advent I am inviting people to share their blessings of 2025. What follows is 24 blog posts of advent positivity, 24 blessings for which a variety of people have chosen to give thanks. At the time of writing, there is still plenty of room for more submissions, so if you wish to please send some words and a picture if you have something you don’t mind sharing of something that has given you a sense of blessing in 2025. Send your entries to cheltglosunitarians@gmail.com

On Sunday 28 December we will have a service at Bayshill Unitarian Church in Cheltenham celebrating some of the blessings that have come up. We could do worse than to use this adaptation of a Fransiscan benediction, which I offer as a blessing for day 1:

Day 1: A Fransiscan Benediction

May God bless us with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that we may live from deep within our hearts.
May God bless us with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of God’s creations
So that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless us with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

May God bless us with just enough foolishness
To believe that we can make a difference in the world,
So that we can do what others claim cannot be done:
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and all our neighbors who are poor.

And may God bless us with an appreciation of our aliveness,
Our knowledge that we are still here and the world still turns,
And in that world we appreciate laughter and sunshine,
The books on our shelves, the people in our lives,
The small details that make our lives complete.

May God bless us and help us be a blessing to others.

Amen