2020 Refection

Where were you last year? (Physically and mentally; shallowly and deeply)

What has changed about your circumstances since?

What have you learned through the evolution of your circumstances?

What were some hard things in 2020? How have you learned from them (about yourself and the world)? How are you continuing to learn from them?

What gifts did 2020 bring? Were they all in pretty wrapping?

How are you proud of yourself? (Write this one down)

How do you want 2021 to be different? To what degree are these within your control? In what ways can you take tangible steps towards these images?

Why are you hesitant to hold ambitious images in your brain?

What do you hope your answers will be to these questions next year if you complete this exercise again?

What was the hardest question to answer?

When We Try To Read Life Like A Book

 

When we read life like a book,

We assign characters roles -

antagonists, protagonists -

create a plot diagram

find a conflict

assign a climax

discover a resolution

(if you're lucky, more than one).

Then after it's all said and done,

hopefully your life will have a theme.

And you hope that it is good.

But life isn't a book

There is no diagram.

Antagonists get grace

And sometimes they win.

Protagonists make mistakes

The conflict doesn't make sense.

Sometimes the good guy dies

and loose ends aren't tied.

When we read life like a book

"everything happens for a reason"

yet we still feel helpless

hopeless

when the ending isn't what we predicted.

Coincidences happen

and believing people call them blessings,

shouting their stories at the world.

While their broken neighbors curse the stars,

yearning for any glimpse that God 

or whoever

hasn't written them out of His plot.

When we read life like a book

We acknowledge a God,

but He's not always good.

We acknowledge a Devil,

but He's not always in second.

We give purpose to pain as if it's deserved.

We put people in boxes they don't fit inside.

Life isn't a book because it isn't linear.

It ebbs and flows without rhythm,

diving in the dark

crashing without cause,

but then we adjust.

And we love anyway.

And we fight harder

And we forgive

And we learn.

Because we weren't made for an ending.

Life's artistry isn't in an orchestration,

but in repeated manifestation.

We are given breath and a body,

then we get to create the art

free from puppet strings.

Things may happen for a reason,

but we get to create it.

Because a life isn't valued in its ending,

but in its living.