The 2020 Good Stuff List
Yesterday, I shared a certainty: the dawn of 2021 will not erase the pall of 2020. It’s a sentiment that may ring hopeless, until you remember that good, beautiful, and true things often cut through the clouds of 2020. And so, I invited you to create a Good Stuff list. Did you?
Today, I’m sharing my Good Stuff list, a recounting of the events, art, people, and places that made 2020 worth remembering.
The Good Stuff
1. I released my latest book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life. It’s a book about the concept of “inner sobriety,” and I painstakingly wrote over the course of three years. If you haven’t read it yet, it’d be a great way to kick off your 2021.
2. 21 years of marriage with Amber. She is my favorite.
3. My family was confirmed into the Catholic Church in the middle of COVID. As I wrote for America Magazine, it was preceded by a long season of uncertain. And when we were confirmed, there no Easter-Vigil fanfare. instead, it was a quieter entrance, with only 50 people in attendance. Small as it was, it felt right, maybe something like home.
4. I started podcasting with Tsh Oxenreider about sacramentality in everyday experience. I’ve resisted podcasting because I didn’t want to create content for the sake of creating content. This is the project that converted me. And I’ve loved every minute of it.
5. I read an amazing novel by David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
6. I read this poem by John Blase: “Solstice 2020.”
7. The food at Atlas in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
8. Amber knitted a whiskey-colored winter hat.
9. One son learned to dunk. One son found ways to make his own money. One son began a research project on what science fiction novels teach us about humanity. One son—the youngest—began reading Jurassic Park.
10. love photography, and in January, I connected with Julie and Chad Cannon for a skinny minute. Julie documents her life with the Fujifilm X-T3, and she let me test drive it. I didn’t do the work to frame up a good shot, but I fell in love with that camera. It’s well designed, optically amazing, and the camera on sell-a-kidney-and-use-the-cash-to-buy-this list.
11. I took some a number of photos. Some I love. Some I hate. All were a thrill.
12. I learned to bake all manner of bread, and though we’ve bought a loaf or two along the way, it’s been mostly homemade since March.
13. I discovered I’ll be writing a book with Amber. Stay tuned.
14. The Expanse, Season 5.
15. The poetry of William Stafford.
16. The writing of Claire Messud.
17. The treasury of the Catechism.
18. The flash of the trout under the water.
19. The boy with the fly rod, making magic.
20. The farm with friends.
This was the list I wrote in less than thirty minutes. There are more, of course, but this is a pretty beautiful start.
What about you? What’s on your Good Stuff List for 2020? If you’re feeling bold, email your list to me. I’d love to read it.
A 2021 Prediction: The Coming Chaos and an Antidote for it.
Recap: a new, more virulent strain of coronavirus is burning through Brits; COVID cases in the United States are expanding by the day; government and corporate servers in the United States were hacked by some foreign entity; the allegations of voter fraud have led a former (and pardoned general) to toss around the idea of implementing martial law; and, the tax relief bill includes a “three martini lunch” provision for corporate executives. And this is just the news from the last five days.
We seem to live under a magical assumption. The ball will drop, closing out 2020. We’ll sing “Auld Lang Syne,” kiss our significant others, and hit the hay. And when the sun greets us on January 1, 2021, the chaos of 2020 will be in the rear view mirror. But this is not the way time, nor viruses, nor hackers, nor politicians, nor lobbyists work. These are the propagators of the churn, the scorch and burn for the sake of profit. They are the propagators of volatility, uncertainty, chaos, and ambiguity since Adam ate the apple, though the modes of technology and the means of attack were different. (Recall the bubonic plague, the knife of Brutus, the Trojan horse?)
I am aware these are not uplifting thoughts, but they are sober. So as we enter 2021, I’m asking you pause. To steal yourself for more of the same. To prepare your heart and mind to approach the new challenges of a new year with toughness, sobriety, and joy. How?
Carve out some time today, and reflect on 2020. Don’t just wallow in the sorrow of a year gone sour. Instead, consider the good stuff, the stuff the fire didn’t touch. Create a sort of good-stuff list, then reflect on it. Share it with you spouse, your friend, whomever. Invite them to create their own.
Train your eyes to see the goodness and beauty of the world around you, even when everything is burning. That kind of training might just get you through another year of chaos.
Come back tomorrow, when I’ll be sharing my own Good-Stuff List.
DON’T GO JUST YET
Have you lived a sober 2020? Chances are, you’ve found yourself more prone to addiction than ever. (The stats say as much.) There’s hope, though. Pick up The Book of Waking Up, and walk into a new year of true, inner sobriety.
Five Photos Proving Beauty is Bigger Than #2020
In the waning weeks of 2020, the Great White North came to visit. In my almost-southern hometown, the magnolias and bamboo bowed low, showing deference to the weight of a year. 2020: It’s been heavy.
Before the snow came, I sat in our local adoration chapel, a thin place in this world where the silence speaks. There, I reviewed the year—COVID-19; the George Floyd protests; the presidency that will not end. I offered a few prayers for peace and resolution, and as I did, other things came to mind. The grace of confirmation. The trout stream. The beauty of Amber’s tiny garden. The Farm. The anniversary. The exquisite food. There’s been enough grace to go around.
There is a temptation to treat 2020 as its own sort of hashtag, a meme of all things negative. This, I perceive, gives the darkness too much weight. We are not bamboo. The world is not snow. Beautiful things are bigger when given their proper place.
What good have you seen in 2020? Reflect on it. Steep yourself in it. There is more beauty than horror in this human life, if only we’ll slow down long enough to see it.
The Examined Life, 2020: How to Goal and Why
2019 is in the books—Should old acquaintance be forgot and never thought upon?—and yesterday, I took a look back. I examined the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I hope you did too. But looking back is only part of the life-examined equation. The examined life sets benchmarks, goals for the new season.
Goals—what should they look like?
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