The New Year brings with it for many of us a renewed sense of hope for our individual and collective futures.  Many people across many cultures look at the new year as an opportunity to make a reconnection with themselves…an opportunity to discard thoughts, behaviors and ideas that don’t serve us any longer and an opportunity to invite new thoughts, behaviors and ideas into our lives as part of our constant journey toward spiritual, personal and communal atonement.

But these changes are hard to make – especially alone.  We see evidence of this difficulty by looking at the YMCA parking lot; packed to capacity in the first weeks of January only to slowly ebb back to “normal” as the year moves on.

With that distance between the change we wish to see and the change we are individually able to accomplish, this year, Emerson will offer a nine week session aimed at putting some structure and community around this personal and spiritual transformation.  It is called “New Year, New You“.

This curriculum, developed by our minister Reverend Ed Proulx, is a values-oriented program based in the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy of Stoicism.  The first three weeks will start with a short lesson and then each week, participants will be given a challenge to consider during the week to come.  We will come hear and learn from each other in subsequent weeks and discuss how we approached the challenge and our individual results, successes and failures.

The group will be facilitated by our minister.  We invite all (regardless of your affiliation to Emerson) to join us.  You don’t have to come to every session.

Dates:  January 19 through February 16, 2025
Time:  10:00am – 11:00am
Place:  Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church, 1900 Bering Drive