With the start of a new year comes a wonderful opportunity. The month of January means that a new period in each of our lives has begun. It is true that each of us carry over many things from day to day and week to week, so that our daily routines easily become unending cycles of repetition. But a new year can signify a dramatic break in that cycle.

As you prepare to “turn the calendar,” consider this interesting fact. A recent book about technology and modern culture suggested that colonial American households typically contained fewer than 100 objects. The author (Kevin Kelly) did not list those items, but I can well imagine that the furniture, utensils and accessories for daily life 200 years ago were much simpler than in contemporary homes. As a mental exercise, take out a sheet of paper and jot down the possible items you imagine were present back in those colonial homes. Then look around your own kitchen, family room, bathroom and bedroom. It would be safe to say that our lives involve thousands of objects unknown to our colonial ancestors. In case you think that last sentence is an over-statement, remember that the typical supermarket today sells more than 48,000 different items.

If there are hundreds or thousands of objects in a typical room around you, the obvious question is “Do I need all this?” If those objects could talk, they would likely reply, “Of course, you do!” Worried that some drastic house-cleaning is about to unfold, the frying pans, breadmakers, and toaster ovens would describe how they make your life better and your meals more convenient. The answering machines, cellphones, and computers would insist that they are necessary to stay connected in this electronic day and age. The racks of clothes, piles of shoes, stacks of books, albums, CDs and magazines would let you know that they bring you happiness and help keep you in style.

It is hard to argue with such persuasive household items. But before you invite them into the conversation, re-imagine the colonial house. Then, fill a good-sized box with items that you are reasonably sure you can live without. You don’t have to give it away yet; just mark it “January 2011” and find a place to store it. If you go six months or a year and never need any item from your box, there’s a good chance that you can donate everything and then re-fill the box in January 2012.

A simple exercise like the one I’ve suggested works on two levels. It causes you to look around with fresh eyes and consciously seek to simplify your life. It also causes you to re-think what is important in your daily life. Without self-examination, the “new year” will simply be an “old year” with a new date attached to it. Any time we ask about what is important, we are asking faith questions. And God loves to chime into those conversations. So take some time in early January to look around, to re-think what you truly need in your life, and to listen to the house-cleaning, soul-cleaning advice God lovingly offers.

One of the most famous lines in E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End is the phrase “only connect.” It is both a diagnosis of a problem and a prescription for a cure. Its stark message names the space that too readily exists between us, the gaps in life and relationships that need to be overcome if we are going to live together in harmony. And in an emphatic way, it tells us to reach across the divide and simply re-connect with one another.

Forster’s novel was set in pre-World War I, Victorian England, a time in which social protocols kept people distant and formal in their relations even as new technology and global challenges were bringing people closer together. In chapter 22, the rallying cry was given its fullest expression:

“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect…”

There is a heartfelt hope that the two parts of life–the prose and the passion, the formal and the vulnerable–might come together, and love in its fullest expression would finally be possible.

There is an eerie similarity between this Victorian-era sentiment and our modern computer era. Constantly we are told about social media that connects people across boundaries of time and space–Facebook communities, Twitter fans, e-mail messages collecting on our computer screen and heralding their arrival through beeps coming from our iPhones, BlackBerrys, and pagers. We are bombarded with contact with others, and yet struggle with issues of intimacy, of in-depth relationships, and of truly connecting as family and friends any more.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, especially as it is shared during the seasons of Advent and Christmas, offers a healing re-formulation of Forster’s phrase. In the joyful news of the birth of Christ, the heavens themselves proclaim God’s message, “I will connect with you!” No longer is the responsibility for bridging the gap left solely upon our shoulders. God in Christ has taken the task to heart and come to us that we might “connect” with God and one another. “Prose and passion” are both exalted. The law of Moses, the rhetoric of the prophets, the sweep of a salvation-history that stretches from creation’s dawn to the distant horizon of God’s realm are all condensed and inter-connected in the birth of Jesus Christ.

We can connect because God has first connected with us. We can trust and hope because, through the healing grace and covenantal love of Christ, we have been made trustworthy and eternally hopeful. As you purchase gifts or send cards, as you pray for others and seek to do acts that are just and compassionate, trust that you can connect with others because God in Christ has connected with us. Let all the earth rejoice!