When I see others talk about their hopes, dreams, and goals for a new year, I get a little nervous. “Jealous” isn’t the right word—I know I’m in a season of intense life output right now between full-time ministry work, wrapping up an MDiv (in May, if all goes as planned), parenting four daughters, etc., so my limitations are ever before me. I’m happy for people who have the margin and energy to set and work toward goals, and will rejoice with them as they make progress.
It’s just that, after about 6 years of no real change in what I hope to do in a given year, I get leery of the question. All of my answers to “do you have any New Year’s resolutions?”—survive, make progress on the degree, stay gainfully employed, eat some food, etc.—land somewhere between the comic and the banal. I’m ready to be able to say things like “write a book” or “work on my health” or “remodel my bathroom” or something tangible and quantifiable.
Last week at the year’s first meeting of our local writer’s group here in Chattanooga, one of the members offered a prompt reflecting on “words of intent”—the practice where people set a word for the year like “balance” or “gratitude” and work to weave that theme into their plans and routines. As I thought about that, I wondered why I’ve never done something like that.
I feel like every year, my word of intent could be “rest.” If there’s one constant answer I give to “how are you?” since about age 18, it’s “busy” with “tired” hot on its heels. Yet every year I ooze into December with nothing left to give. Life has a way of squeezing you dry, especially if you have a the nasty habit of being overly self-sacrificing, workaholic, perfectionistic, idealistic, or worse still, you’re a writer.
“Joy,” is another perennial candidate, but it’s just as elusive. It turns out that at least a little bit of rest is required to create the conditions for joy to flourish. I’m a type one on the enneagram, and walking among chronic disorder or uncompleted projects is a hard path to follow if you’re looking for mirth.
“Adventure” is a popular choice for friends, and I do have a penchant for ill-planned mapless hikes, or 13-day road trips to no place in particular, or weekenders to distant cities for no reason at all. It’s as much a personality quirk as a coping mechanism in the midst of craziness. But setting a goal for something you already do without prompting is rather like writing “wake up” at the top of your to-do list so you can check it right off.
“Faithful” hits me as a bit trite (and, well, not so much an area for growth for a compulsive rule follower and slow-deciding, perseverant type); “kind” feels too cloying (and not the most helpful for someone like me—see above); “transformation” feels hubristic (and, given life’s present circumstances, unobtainable).
I suppose I could also do what I always do and choose no word at all—content to let the chips fall where they may and lean hard into a somehow selfish lack of agency. But so many of the ways I feel pinched and stretched (however exhausted and stressed I become) are direct results of paths I’ve chosen. And “chosen sufferings” is at least one way that disciplines have been described historically.
So, maybe this year can have a word. If I can choose my difficulties, I should also exercise agency in choosing my hopes. Maybe this year can be “watchful.”
I’m not sure how it will play out. Between now and the end of May, virtually every waking moment is pre-planned, earmarked for non-negotiable responsibilities and degree work. Anything too grandiose just won’t happen this year, so I’d like to watch. I want to see what happens to me (in me?) as I’m carried along on this stream. After that, I want to slow down and see what’s going on around me.
“Watchful” already shows up in my life in a few ways. I look for birds—in the backyard, on trips, on hikes, at the wildlife refuge in the next county up the river—and keep count of different species in a spreadsheet, learning to match their calls with their plumage and discover their activity patterns. I follow flowers through the seasons, looking for spots where rare plants bloom due to microclimates or soil pH, and timing visits to botanical gardens through the year to soak up fleeting beauty. I collect (and even sometimes eat) mushrooms when they crop up along these walks. And I write poems. Most often these are responses to such moments, trying to capture a scene in words to keep hold of something ephemeral and craft a record of an unrepeatable spot in spacetime.
It dawns on me that all of these habits of watching are about loss as well. Watching is the practice of losing things well, of seeing them come and go, and appreciating them for what they are without expecting them to be something else. Watching is about sharing presence while it may be shared, and refusing to hold back from feeling all the mixed emotions of joy and anguish and wonder and grief in these moments.
Learning to lose is learning to see, and learning to see is learning what to keep. And maybe, just maybe, that’s something I can do to order my days this year.