Each year as January 1st approaches I think of the beginning of Ecclesiastes 3 — you know, the one where there is a time for everything — maybe you know it, even from a funeral or a song. I linger over each phrase and ponder the life and death that has happened in one year, the weeping and laughing, the planting and harvesting, the mourning and dancing, the war and the peace.

I have a friend who each year keeps a jar with little scraps of paper in it, each an experience she had throughout the year: a fun family vacation, a hard day at work, a close call, an inspirational chance meeting with a stranger, a hard discussion with a spouse that heals and moves them forward. All the scraps collect in the jar for a year and then at the end my friend reads the scraps, remembering each experience — good and bad, wonderful and difficult — blesses each time and burns the scrap in a fireplace. Then the jar is empty and waits another year of experiences to gather together.

I think it is only human to be introspective at turning points in life, to look back and learn, to look ahead and hope.

I think this is exactly what the writer of Ecclesiastes is writing to us: that time passes and all on earth has its time. Within the course of a year or a lifetime, there is a time for all things, even the things which we would rather not. And God gives us a sense of past and future, perhaps so that we can learn from an understand what happens in our present. God gives us a sense of past and future, perhaps so we can change our reaction to our present. We may not always understand what and why, but we can learn from them and we can offer our thanks to God for each experience, even the ones we would rather not.

I’ve never been one for resolutions, but I do like some kind of end of year/beginning of year ritual to mark what is past and what will be. Perhaps this is my year to keep a jar of experiences, little scraps of paper that contain stories and experiences of all kinds: love and hate, killing and healing, breaking down and building up, gathering and throwing stones, building up and tearing down. Maybe this year is time to write a scrap of experience and allow it to cure silently on its own until next year, even forgotten until I fish it out and read it fresh again and allow that experience to teach me again how to love, how to forgive, how to live.

This is exactly what the writer of Ecclesiastes was doing. He is said to have been an old man nearing the end of his life, and looking back. Maybe he had something like a jar of experiences all collected together to read and remember and ponder to help teach him about life and love and all things. Life gives us plenty of experience, but if we never think about it, we may never learn anything new. As the end of a year and the beginning of a year approach, it may be helpful for each of us to ponder the scraps of our lives and experiences and what we may have to learn from them, to give thanks to God for all of them, even the ones we would rather not, and to offer them to God as gift, looking forward to receiving a whole new years’ worth of experience.

— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. Reverend Kelly Volk is the pastor at Washington Reformation United Church of Christ.