Hello friends,
Happy New Year! How are you greeting 2025? Bedraggled? Refreshed? Hopeful? Cautious?
This week’s newsletter is not our typical format, because it’s my year-end issue, where I give myself free rein to be as chatty as I want to be. It will be very meandering. If you’re new here, welcome!…and I hope to return to more regular fare in the next issue.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: 2024 Year in Review
Looking back over 2024 seems unreal. I think anytime you lose someone close to you, the realities of the time gone by go sideways. Dad’s health took a quick downward turn in July, and we knew the end was coming. Time went by slowly and quickly at the same time. I feel like I just lost track of time.
Dad died the same weekend that the hurricane swept through the mountains of the western part of our state, and it felt surreal to be suffering in a different, remote way—far away, in New England—when so many people were rallying to help others here at home. Grief, suffering, sadness, and recovery…these things all take time, energy, and more time.
While 2024 will always be marked for me as the year I lost my dad, there were other, more pleasant realities: our youngest son graduated from high school and entered college; our daughter got her braces off, her first real job, and her driver’s license; our oldest two kids moved back home to save money and get their feet under them. Our middle guy continues to thrive at college. Everyone’s paths intersect, diverge, and run parallel at various times.
A few joys from the year:
The Reading Promiscuously1 Book Club: Our book club, made up of men and women from our church, crossed the line to five years in existence in 2024. We had some of my favorite meetings yet, including one in our front yard, discussing Tolkien’s “Smith of Wooten-Major” and “Leaf by Niggle.” I love this group and the people in it. Toward the end of the year, we stared around the circle and decided we were ready—it was time. We’re doing War and Peace, beginning this month. I’ll see you on the other side.
A movie: While I generally love small, beautiful movies, I am also all-in for the summer blockbuster experience in the movie theatre. My husband and I went to our nearby single-screen, old-timey theatre and watched Twisters. It was ridiculous, loud, and everything I wanted in the experience. I still prefer the original, for the record.
A book: I Cheerfully Refuse. I’ve said plenty about this one, but in case you missed it, you can read some here and right here.
A podcast: I recently made a habit of listening to Tim Keller more often, through the Gospel in Life podcast. Tim’s teaching is always water to my soul, pricking my affections and helping me carry on in faith.
Other good things: Through the generosity of my sister’s friend, one of our sons got to see Noah Kahan in concert in Fenway Park. Few things are more present-day New England-y2 than Noah in a custom Red Sox jersey singing “Northern Attitude.”
David and I wrapped up the year with a long December weekend in Nashville, and it was just what I needed. From Pete Peterson’s brilliant stageplay adaptation of A Christmas Carol to the much-lauded Behold the Lamb of God concert at the Ryman Auditorium, we soaked up beauty and rested. An extra delight at the concert was running into friends—both ones we expected and ones we were surprised by.
A readthrough: This year I read through the Bible for the first time in ten years. I haven’t done this in a decade, preferring instead to do deeper studies of smaller portions. But in 2024 I returned to a broad survey of Scripture, using the plan at Five Day Bible Reading. The plan there is loosely chronological through the Old Testament (on the same day, you may read about kings and the prophecies they heard, for example). Psalms are sprinkled throughout the year thematically, and the New Testament has a daily reading as well. The only downside to this plan, in my mind, is the fact that they put Job at the end of the year. So during Advent, when the world around you is lighting up with meditations on the Incarnation, you’re reading Job and Revelation. This was kind of a downer, but maybe more in keeping with the thought that Advent might be a fast and not a feast.
I read the Bible in a different translation this round: the CSB. I recommend switching up your translation from time to time, as it helps you pay attention in a new way. For example, I love the CSB version of the most well-known verse in the Bible: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son…” (emphasis mine).
I Kept Writing. If you’ll indulge me for some self-promotion, I was reading through some of my writing from the past year and picked two favorites. One, it was a thrill to be published for the Square Halo Conference with my essay about Lucy and Edmund. Two, this piece on abundance struck me again. Wendell Berry’s writing often reminds me of the beautiful timelessness of God—a fitting meditation as we enter another year.
He saw that he would be distinguished not by what he was or anything that he might become but by what he served. Beyond him was the peace and rest and joy that he desired. Beyond the limits of a man's strength or intelligence or desire or hope or faith, there is more. The cup runs over.
-from The Memory of Old Jack
Happy New Year, friends!
For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King
Reading promiscuously means reading widely—see here for more explanation. “reading widely and well shapes and forms our character. It cultivates virtue.”
Except, perhaps, Noah’s hilarious LL Bean crossover. We loved/hated it.
I very much appreciate the book club footnote! Also I enjoyed all these reflections - here's to The War & Peace Year! ;)
Happy New Year, Kelly! It’s always great to read your contemplations. We lost Kraig’s dad last summer, too, and I have a few other friends who lost a parent—all while our kids are charging into adulthood. Such a strange point of life to be in.