Reflection Questions for the Turning of the Year
I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve stumbled into 2023 a bit dazed. The holidays burned down low before I could even really take them in and though full of joy, were exhausting as ever.
We had our Tuesday night gathering with neighborhood and church friends last night, and I felt foggy in deciding what to do together. In the end, I decided to do what I was yearning for, a few reflections on the year over before jumping into the new.
As always, it was a little bit effective, a little bit chaotic, a little bit aggravating and a little bit moving. We ate together and shared some glimpses of our lives and where God wove in and out of them. We were a mixed-age group, so we couldn’t dive too deep, but I’m sharing the reflection questions and my responses here. I invite you to use the same to allow your spirit to catch up, too.
What times or places did you feel God close to you this year? What times or places was it more difficult?
This year, maybe because of this blog and its title, I felt like my eyes have been trained to the light that illuminates where I least expect it. I felt God’s nearness in my kitchen, watching my children grow and change, in Alabama where a planned vacation turned into an unplanned move to hospice care and a goodbye for a beloved uncle, near water, always, especially with friends I’ve had since I was six. It was difficult to sense God’s presence in this fall full of sickness and constantly changing plans. No amount of pho can change how all of us have been tossed in the waves of fevers and testing and decisions about whether to gather—the stress burning our heart like sand on knees.
What helped you learn about or feel God’s character (God’s love, peace, patience, fairness, etc…) this year? What got in the way at times?
Mary Oliver wrote at the end of her life, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” She invited us to believe that “we need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it.”
After a season of burnout followed by disillusionment followed by a season of suffering and a limping way forward, I have found less certainty and more mystery in what I believe. Some doctrines or dictums itch when I pull them on, now, or feel worn and less compelling. But beauty, gratuitous, generous, ridiculous beauty still brings me to my knees and softens my heart toward its giver.
There’s no logical reason for cranberries to glint in the colander. No reason for dahlias to dazzle under dewdrops. I can’t account for how bulbs multiply in darkness or grapes grow after deep cuts, how when we didn’t even know we wanted a cat, we received two. I have no formula for why we were given the Fibonacci sequence or why carrots come in more than one color. It’s all gift. And in a world that is literally on fire I seek beauty to remember what God original intended.
In the book Patrick and I have been reading aloud at night (Ember Rising), the rabbits embroiled in a battle are surprised to find a hidden Citadel of Dreams that’s full of song and stories and good food and friends. When they ask about it, the hosts say it is to stir the imagination, a way for fighters to remember what they actually are trying to reclaim.
One of the characters, Landers, says, “I remember what Captain Blackstar told me. He said we have to keep loving what’s on the other side of this fight—the other side of this rescue— and that will have to make us brave.”
Who showed you what it meant like to be a part of God’s good family this year? Who did you act as family to this year?
We were so scattered when we first came to Immanuel that this year felt like the first time we could really put down roots and enjoy being a part of the humble, genuine, generous, and willing-to-try new things community that is IMC. We camped and feasted and threw neighborhood parties and Christmas teas. I continue to be grateful for a place to be a small family within a large Family, and for those who’ve nurtured us and allowed us to nurture.
As to who we’ve been family to, it’s a sacred honor to be invited close in suffering and joy to those in the midst of upheaval. This has been a year of encouraging our single mama of four with doorstep gifts, feeding folks with sickness or new babies, making kid charcuterie boards for a new foster family, listening to phone calls about kid’s behavior and crippling post-partum anxiety, grieving a cancer diagnosis and DoorDash delivering food across town and countries when life got hard. Instead of looking for helpers like Mr. Roger’s reminded us, we got to be helpers. Hallelujah.
What is one thing you learned from somebody else this year? What is one thing you taught or shared?
My children continue to be my best teachers, especially in the areas where our desires and similarities get close and cause friction. I’ve learned to be curious instead of trying to fix, to allow big feelings to shake through our bodies, to move our bodies especially when everyone has different needs to be regulated. I’ve learned we get farther by starting with we’re good kids, we’re okay and we’re loved. We’re good kids having a hard time, and God loves the heck out of us.
As for sharing, in June I surprised myself by getting my first tattoo. It stemmed from an image from a prayer time where God gave me the image of a golondrina, a swallow, to give me hope in one of my darkest seasons. Sailors who had miles under their belts, who had made it safely home would get them inked as signs of experience and survival. Combined with a gingko leaf, a symbol of resilience, I had someone write the story permanently on my arm. Getting to share how God carried me through in mysterious and merciful ways (in checkout lines and jury duty and with new acquaintances) has been a tender honor.
What need in the world made you sad or angry or discouraged about this year? What did you do with those feelings?
If I took the time to write the entire litany of suffering that threatened to bowl us over this year, it would take ages. We had friends who dealt closely with war, death, divorce, disease, discouragement, depression and watched the same on a global scale. So, I’ll zero in on an area of particular proximity: teachers at my children’s school district. Watching educators I respect getting embroiled in culture wars, resigning even before winter break, crying over being given snacks in the break room, and demoralized in the midst of huge needs churned my stomach. Those feelings lead me to write and advocate and occasionally, redo an awfully depressing break space. In a world with so much injustice and brokenness, it felt like moving my arms along with God to do small things to show solidarity and support instead of stopping in despair.
(Below: before and after thrift store makeover of teacher break space)
What is a gift/skill/experience you were able to share this year that made Jesus’ kingdom come on earth a little more?
It’s my hope that these words, along with other pixels I’ve put out into the world have encouraged you or someone you know this year. I pray that whatever God made you to do, you do it masterfully and joyfully and humbly this year, knowing that the world needs your voice/hands/smile/feet/creativity/money/front door/seat/eyes.
Happy 2023. Comfort, joy, peace and IMAGINATION to you.
