The lives we live

a new year, and a new call from God

Fr. Cathie Caimano and St. Paul's Salisbury, NC

Jan 05, 2026

St. Paul’s announcements:

Every year, on the last Sunday of December, the New York Times Magazine publishes an issue called ‘the Lives they Lived.’ It’s a chronicle of the accomplishments of 25 or so people who have died in the year that is just concluding.

I find it fascinating that it’s not just people we have all heard of and collectively mourn in our culture – like Jane Goodall, George Foreman, and Diane Keaton from 2025, But also people we likely never would have known about, but who still contributed to our world and our lives.

This year the Times included people like Anna Ornstein, a child who escaped from Nazi Germany and grew to be a psychoanalyst who changed the way trauma survivors are seen - as resilient, rather than damaged.

And Douglas Follett, a veteran park ranger who documented glaciers melting. And Agnes Gund - an art collector who sold a painting for 165 million dollars, then gave it all away.

I’m fascinated with this yearly remembrance of an eclectic group because it makes something clear:

This small sample of people, by merely offering their unique gifts to the world, changed the world for everyone.

And this makes me think that we each have that opportunity, that we are tied together and our actions have consequences in the larger scheme of things that are greater than we even dare to believe.

And of course it makes me think that it’s all tied back to our life with God,

God with us, God who came into the world as one of us, the Incarnation of Christ.

Because by choosing to take human form, by being born to us as a baby, full of potential and possibility, God has sanctified humanity itself.

Not that we are God, or could ever be God, but that some part of the essence of being human is part of God’s kingdom in the world.

That we share in the building of that kingdom, and our choices to accept and give back the gifts we have been given have something to do with God’s work in the world.

In today’s Gospel there is the very famous story of how many different people stared up into the sky and saw something that was a gift to them, and how it affected what they did next.

The story is famous because we have heard it many times before, but also because it is so familiar to us, to the story that each one of us lives.

Because the wise men looked up into the sky and saw a star and immediately they knew that they were called to follow it, that this meant something for their lives and for the world that they were meant to be part of, to bring gifts to.

But Herod was afraid, and all Jerusalem with him, and he set out equally determined to destroy this power that was unfamiliar and unwelcome to him.

And although there is a lot more drama here than we usually get in our own stories, the choices before us every day are, in fact, equally clear:

First, will we even look up into the sky and ponder what the stars have in store for us?

Will we believe that God born into the world means that each one of us has been given a gift, a call to follow this sanctified part of ourselves, a journey that only we can take?

And second, how will we respond?

Will we see this power that is beyond us as a threat to our security? Will we try to neutralize whatever it is that we know will disrupt our lives, even if it is ultimately for the better?

Or will we set out to bring our own gifts to the world, our own unique voice to give back to the needs that are all around us?

Even if it costs us, even if it is difficult, even if we may never know the final results.

The thing I love most about reading this tribute to those special lives we have lost this past year is that many of them seemed foolish, almost trivial, in the moment.

And not all of them were entirely fulfilling or long lives. One life included this year is Jill Sobule, a singer songwriter who was brilliant but struggled, and her life was cut short by tragedy.

There is a risk, of course, to offering our gifts, following our path.

We could get lost, we could stray far from the path, we could never find what that star leads to. But I wonder if that is worse than never setting out at all.

One thing I can’t help noticing about this Gospel story is that, while the birth of Jesus permeates and guides everything that happens in it, Jesus himself is barely noticeable in the action.

Several mentions are made of the ‘the child,’ and in the end the wise men are described as being present with Mary and her son, but almost everything that happens is the action of those around him, the response to those who receive the news of his birth.

God with us is the center of our own calling to seek the source of love and truth in our lives.

And since that day, when the star appeared above Bethlehem, we are also compelled to seek how the signs and patterns of the sky add up to something, make some sense to our lives and how we are living them, what we are making of them, where we are going.

The Incarnation is the center of this, but the choices and the directions are up to us to discern.

And it is up to us to believe that the gifts that we have to give will affect those around us, will build up the world we live in, will be part of the kingdom of God.

That all the chaos and randomness of the days and events of our lives, whether we realize it or not, is adding up to a pattern that may take years, even centuries, to see.

Or maybe only God will get how it all fits together. But each one of us clearly has a part.

This is the time of year for making resolutions, for taking stock of our lives and deciding what we would like to improve or leave behind or build on or change. And in our story with God, the Gospel, we see so clearly that we can resolve to dispel the power of the Incarnation in our lives or we can resolve to embrace it and follow where it leads.

What will the stars bring to your life this year?

What will belief in the power of God in your life lead you to be?