A Year of Reflection - Newborns, Foraging, and Wide-Open Country

But I thought, of the wren’s singing,

what could this be if it isn’t a prayer?

So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Mary Oliver

Here in the PNW, we are in the middle of a week of snow and temperatures in the 20’s. Some days have been still and quiet with tapioca snow, some have layered deeper, fluffier flakes good for walking, one day the sun broke through the iron cloud cover, another day was windy and the snow slushy. All have been colder than what is typical for where I live.

On the first day it snowed tapioca snow, the little styrofoam balls called graupel. I noticed right away some unusual tracks in the snow on our driveway. They were little close-together marks in a foursome like the face of a ghost or a delicate bunny had pressed her face into the snow leaving the impression of her nose and ears.

It turns out, they were rabbit tracks criss-crossing our driveway and yard. I knew we had several garden rabbits that traversed our neighborhood because I had seen them squeezing under the fences between neighbors in the green grass of spring.

But as I walked as much as a mile toward the pond I like to visit, I noticed their distinctive tracks everywhere beginning under berry bushes and tree roots and scrambling over curbs, disappearing into undergrowth. The snow had quietly revealed their larger population and hidden paths.

That is where we are at the moment -in a moment of noticing hidden tracks.

We are in the week that stretches from Christmas to New Years. Actually we are still in the Twelve Days of Christmas, the season called Christmastide. At the same time, we are crossing from one year to the next.

This week has the feeling of being in the borderlands, the shadowlands, on the threshold, in the limen.

These are in-between days. They hold both long goodbyes and even longer hellos.

It is tempting to rush headlong into the New Year, get to what’s shiny and new and hopeful. Our new dreams and goals and plans that are yet untarnished by realities.

Perhaps, that is simply our culture’s inclination or let’s be honest, our own. We do love living in the bright future. But also, perhaps there is much we hope to leave behind: disagreements, contentious politics, racial injustices and divisions and life in a pandemic with all of its losses - jobs, easy travel, gatherings, dreams, friendships, familiar roads and rhythms, the expectation of kind words, and dear people we love. I’m sure you could add something here.

This is a moment for reflection, to look back over this year of our Lord, 2021, and pay attention to what it held, the obvious and the hidden.

Here are some ways to look back that help me see not only what I hoped for, but what actually happened. Maybe some will work for you.

Take some time to notice:

• a song you had on repeat

• books that lingered and lodged into your soul

• frequent or highlighted in your camera roll

• ups and downs from your journal

• life-giving habits, people, or events

• losses, laments, and letting go’s

• absences

• if you had one, what happened with your one word?

Song on repeat.

Storehouse by the Gray Havens is the one that stands out from this last year as I can remember exactly where I was when I began to cry.

Top 3 Books.

I read alot of books this year, but these are the ones I took longest to read and digest. They are the most quoted in my journal and woven into my writing. Apparently, I was chasing beauty, longing, and deep connection to the Holy and the human.

Photographs.

I scrolled through my camera roll and noticed what caught my eye in images. I made a list.

We welcomed two newborn baby boys. I graduated from seminary and completed my certification as a Spiritual Director. Mike and I did some interior rearranging as two of our big kids moved further away.

Most of my photos were of:

• the moon • the sky • fog • open fields • Van Gogh art • the changing seasons • reading books to my grandchildren • noticing everyday shadow and light • baking sourdough bread • coffee, candles and books • 2 newborn baby boys • so many flowers! • what I saw on my daily walks • belated seminary graduation • my kids moving away • Sabbath flowers • Fujimura art • foraging (feathers, flowers, mushrooms, moss, leaves and nuts) • family faces • hawks and herons • labyrinth walks • birthday dinners at home • celebrating my mama’s 80th birthday • mountains, woods, rivers •

Journals.

I flipped through my journals and noticed what occupied my heart and mind in words. I’ve kept one for Ignatian prayers and filled two with everything else - sermons, classes, reading notes, ideas, things I learned. I made another list.

The recurring themes in my journals were:

• first unfiltered thoughts in the morning • mothering/shepherding • collaborations • creativity • liturgical seasons • sabbath rest • Rule of Life • firing my body guard • trust • finding my voice • pilgrimage • poetry • sitting still in God’s loving, piercing gaze • beauty • synchronicities • desert places • friendships loosening and tightening • quotes from mystics, writers, artists • thankfulness • the art of writing • resilience •

For the first time, this year I noticed my doodles. These little scribbles I’ve been doing for years and thought were random space-fillers, are actually part of my conversations with my soul and my God. They are telling part of my story, too.

Writing.

I read through my Instagram and blog posts. Much of what I am lingering on in my journals and photographs have found their way into my writing. When there is more to say, more wrestling to do, an article or blog post is born.

There is usually overlap in these streams running through the year just passed. But sometimes the overlap is strong, almost on repeat like a denim double-seam, suggesting God may still have work to do in that area in me. I want to catch those seams.

That feels resilient, wholehearted, qualities I want to lean into more than mistake-avoiding or perfection. Poet David Whyte writes,

“The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. It’s wholeheartedness.”

Life-giving habits.

I thrived in new spiritual patterns of: making a daily list of 3 thanks (#tinythanks), baking bread and bringing flowers to Sabbath, foraging the current season on my daily walks (leaves, flowers, nuts, stones), and praying through the Ignatian Exercises alongside a small group at my church.

Losses, laments and letting go.

I felt the distance between Oregon and Georgia, between Texas and Oregon, even across the mountains.

I am sitting here right now with wrapped gifts under our tree and stockings still hung along the stairs. Due to weather storms on both sides of the mountains and in the pass, we have only celebrated 2/3’s of our Christmas. It has taken all of December and now headed into January.

I am learning to be extravagantly nimble when it comes to celebrating with my big family. That seems congruent with the original Christmas story with all the waiting for the shepherds, Jesus dedication in the Temple, and the arrival of the Magi. Based on Herod’s murder decree, it would have taken up to two years.

In a similar way, I have attempted to hold my friendships tenderly and honestly, letting them be what they are in the moment with patience and hope for their future.

At one point this last year, I decided to fire my body guard. I had this flash of insight that was actually a longtime coming that the problem with a bouncer is that she can keep others at arm’s length and God too. I gave her a pink slip and thought she was gone for good. I am realizing that was just a beginning, but what a glorious one.

Absences.

A few things I recognized that didn’t seem to be reflected in my photos or journal pages except by their absence.

We cooked at home more often. Date nights were at home with take out. We exercised long patience on being together as a family due to weather, health, and Covid. Our patience and grace were needed in home projects that took much longer to complete or even begin due to contractors being available or getting Covid midway. We did not take a big dreamed-of trip to Italy or Oxford last summer.

One Word.

My one word for 2021, a word that I say chose me, was “open country”. I wondered if it might have meant a literal move to the country that Mike and I have long dreamed of. It seemed like this year might be the one with our last big kid moving out on his own. Instead it seems like the open country I discovered was inside me and that big kid who launched out into the world.

A much wider, deeper gift is that of a wide-open interior space where God abides and we get to know each other and the us he is still crafting.

Keep it slow.

At this point in the year-end reflection, I am just noticing what I noticed, paying attention to what I paid attention to. I am slowing down to a walking pace, trying to get close enough to see texture and undersides, sense nuance, feel temperatures rise and fall, smell change in the air, see my footprints and God’s fingerprints. I am looking for those rabbit tracks that I might have missed or jumped to conclusions about.

I am also not moving forward yet. I am still looking back, lingering, listening, savoring.

I am not in a rush. Or trying not to be.

I am going 3 mph, a walking pace. I need to say this out loud to you, because slowing down is difficult in our fast moving world. I need you to remind me.

I am trying to imitate our beautiful God. Kosuke Koyama writes,

“God walks slowly because he is love. . . Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed . . It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice it or not, whether we are currently hit by storm or not, at 3 miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore it is the speed the love of God walks.”

So there it is, the part I call a long goodbye to 2021. I seem to be living through new births, foraging for beauty in the ordinary, and wide open country. You could say this reflection is Part 1 of the in-between space between the end of one year and the start of another.

This is a time for curiosity. If you want to do your own reflection, feel free to use all or part of this pattern. I offer in the hopes it will help you in knowing yourself, your current season, and God’s invitations before looking ahead.

And may I suggest you take your time - a few brief mornings, a long morning, a day, a weekend, on and off over a week, the first week or two into January. Whatever it takes.

Here are a few questions you might ask as you take stock of your 2021. What surprised you? What habits, people, events brought you life? What drained you before it even began? What brought you tears of joy and tears of heartache?

Part 2, my long hello to 2022, will be next.