Reflections | 2018 Recap

I can’t say that I subscribe to the thought process that an entire year is obligated to good or bad or that it might be consumed by one thing that ruins it or gives complete life to the entirety of the year. I believe the turning of a year offers a chance for each of us to refresh our minds and our body’s rhythms, our practices or how we focus our thoughts. I believe these opportunities offer themselves forwardly at the happening of any significant date. That said, I do not believe that we have to wait for any one of these things in order to begin an exfoliation of a routine that causes unhealth in our lives and relationships, nor do we have to wait for the turning of time in order to pursue healing.

Where there is strife, great growth is offered. Where there is pain, a well of healing begins to bleed water.

I believe that our pain, caused by ourselves or others, is wrapped up in some fashion of goodness. Seeking and pursuing the good does not come easy and it is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it always an appropriate time to lean into the silver lining.

Sitting in the muck is cathartic, as on a hot day in the white sands of the ocean with our legs tucked beneath the surface of the warm water. While the clear water has been diminished there is life in the midst of what we can see. Sitting in the swirling of sand after our body has stirred up the earth beneath us- we sit in the unclear water, the muck. Whirlpools of salt water will begin to create change where we cannot see- but we can feel the movement. The motion of the waves- the current we experience that stimulates poor vision to start with begins to push the unsettled sand back to the earth. Before the water returns to the turquoise it began, if we look closely our eyes are drawn toward the movement of something small a minnow perhaps and it guides our eyes to something outside of itself, something even bigger than itself. This can carry our attention to something wonderful. Under the surface of the water, while gravity is sorting out the mess a human made that little minnow is finding goodness and leading our eyes to it, if given permission- a change of perspective. When we sit still just long enough, the whirlpools calm, the minnows continue their quick movements, the sand of the earth settles into a new place, the water returns to its intended clarity and we are left changed. We are changed for having experienced life around us, we are changed for having let our bodies feel something more powerful than us, for having let ourselves be swallowed by creation and for having sat in reflection. In the midst of the unsettledness of where our feet led us, there is space created for growth. These roots- these never leaves us.

The last 365 days have been filled with some of my greatest joys and deepest sorrows. I have experienced incredible victories and wildly unexpected loss. I am moved inwardly toward goodness. I am in pursuit of integrating all of the versions of me in to a more whole version of myself. May the journey never bore, may the journey never seize to show me the wonder of a God who loves steady in wildly unanticipated ways and may we hold fast to the truths the presents to each of us.

2018 represented wonderfully beautiful things, however, I’m so glad the date of the year has adjusted itself and has offered a bit of a reset, for me and mine. Cheers to 2019, for whatever it may hold, I hope the sand settles and renewal comes with the calm. xx-k