The beginning of the year often feels like a hurricane, to me.

I don’t mean that in the sense you might expect. The beginning of the year doesn’t feel like a hurricane because of the metaphorical whipping winds and drenching rain of a new school or program year, as the calm days of summer turn into a flurry of commitments and an empty calendar quickly fills up.

It feels like a Boston-bound hurricane, the kind where you simply don’t know what’s about to come.

There is a literal hurricane headed our way, of course. And as is often the case in the Northeast, it’s almost totally unclear what it’s going to bring. Will it pummel us full strength, bringing down trees onto power lines, overtopping seawalls and flooding busy streets? Or will it snooze on by, squeezing in a few more downpours at the end of the wettest summer in living memory?

How can you know? How can you prepare?

I don’t give natural-disaster advice. (Maybe people really should be buying up cartons of eggs and gallons of milk at the grocery store this week to get ready. Storms are apparently perfect omelet weather.) But as we face the unpredictable storm of another new year, I think that the best advice might be this: Be prepared. And be prepared to be unprepared.

I have no idea what this hurricane will bring, or not. I hope no new leaks spring for you during the storm; but I hope you have a bucket if they do. And I have no idea what this year will bring, for us as a church or for any of you as individuals. I hope that all our hopes for this year come true, and I’m sure that there are some surprises ahead. But I know that whatever happens next, we’ll be prepared to face it together.