hot air balloons, another year ending, and the ever-present gentleness of God
Tethered | December (or 2023, whatever...)
You’re reading Tethered Letters, a monthly long-form letter on creative faith and faithful creativity. Everything I write is AI-free. Thanks for reading.
Hello loved ones,
I thought a lot about the first words you would read from me in 2024 in this space. But I always open these letters with the words I think are the most important — that remind you, I hope, that you are loved, and we are still here together.
However, the only thing I could think to say about a new year is (checks notes): yep, it is one.
Our family and extended family celebrations are officially over, and we've set ourselves to work and school again. The vortex week between Christmas and New Year has done it's dirty work of consuming all of time and space and spitting out confusion, sugared-up kids, and general exhaustion. I still don't know what day it is, except that it's another one. During the last week of the year time is meaningless, or rather, he's so besotted with eggnog that he's stumbling around a bit and loudly asking people where he left his phone.
We had a good holiday. We spent it with people we don't see often, whom we love very much. We have seen them off with warm wishes until the next time. We've watched the movies and eaten the cookies and played the games, and now we're left with the promise of a new year ahead in which to accomplish more, do more, be more, grow more. That, and inexplicable amounts of glitter and cookie crumbs showing up in every crevice.
It is 2024. Did I say that already?
It has been almost four years now that I've been writing Tethered Letters, attempting to make some sense of the world I inhabit and the madness of the writing life by... well, inhabiting and writing about it, I guess. Every year that comes to a close reminds me of how grateful I am to all of you — whether you're a reader, a paid supporter, a friend or family member, or some combination of all of those.
There are days when I'm flummoxed that anyone reads this thing at all, but most days I'm just thankful. I write with your names and faces in my mind. And for those of you I don't know, I mostly imagine you look like one of the Muppets. Usually lovable furry Grover, but also Statler or Waldorf, and sometimes Animal. Some of you even get the distinct honor of embodying Gonzo. Just know that this is probably the biggest compliment I could ever give you. Here’s a New Year promise: tell me your favorite Muppet in the comments and I’ll forever think of you that way.
My sincere hope for you is that in the quiet after the holiday storm, you're finding a bit of space from people talking at you about all the things you should be doing with your new year.
The old year sometimes feels like it's a large balloon losing hot air. At the start it's filled up to bursting and you're flying high. As the year flies by and you scrape up against branches and buildings and general reality you start to see tears in the fabric, you start to hear air whistling through the gaps, and you notice a steady descent. So you toss your excess baggage overboard, you streamline your little basket as best you can, you patch the holes and inadvertently make more in the process. Whoops.
But eventually you realize it's going to be a close one, and you might not make it to your destination at all (if you even know what that is). At this point you work harder to patch stuff up and make it as far as you can before you crash, or just give up and spend the remainder of flight time huddled down in the basket. On impact at the end of December, hopefully, you end up in the arms of a loved one, thankful to have landed at all, whatever state you're in.
At this point, the temptation is to jump into the shiny new balloon parked nearby labeled "2024" and just take off again. But the last few years I think I've been missing the basket. I feel like I've been left behind on the ground, my arms full of empty balloon fabric. As everyone starts launching their new years, I'm down here yelling, "Wait a minute! I wasn't done with the old one yet. I haven't figured out what happened. Do we just... leave this here?"
Now that I've stretched this metaphor beyond reason, let me explain what I'm really scratching at here: the old year just feels heavy. I can't pick up a new year without setting the old one down first, but I don't have the strength of mind, will, or body to do so easily or quickly. And I don't think any of us are really given much time to do so.
The week between Christmas and the end of the year would be the traditional place this happens. Maybe some of you had the necessary headspace and time and quiet to gently fold your balloon fabric into a neat little package and tuck it away in your garage. Mine is half dangling from a blue spruce and half crumpled all over the lawn, festooned in Christmas lights and cookie crumbs while a bunch of bright-eyed carolers circle it in some pagan celebration, one that might end in ritual immolation.
Some of the pressure at the end of the year toward desperate celebration could be related to that old Christmas boogeyman: avarice, as Dickens might put it, or consumerism, as every Christmas movie from my 90s childhood claimed. Certainly the year feels like a whole lot when it's slumped all over your dwindling checking account. Heavy.
The holidays are also a grand opportunity to see family and friends, just with all the extra obligations of dressing up and cooking massive meals and buying thoughtful gifts and not flapping your mouth off about politics in front of Uncle Hubert. These are the hardest types of gatherings; they tend toward the bittersweet, with empty seats and unspoken hurts colliding with real human joys and comforts. Who of us can really hold all of those things at once? No one has the time to really hash out childhood traumas and familial expectations, so you just pack it away with that cheese ball and that Christmas ham. Heavy.
Maybe the year feels heavy because I didn't accomplish what I thought I should have accomplished by the end of it. Why didn't I read more/better books? Why didn't I finish all the things I started? Have I even grown at all in any real way? The proliferation of end-of-year lists weighs on me not because I hate people in general (well, not just that) but because their accomplishments always seem to weigh more when compared to mine.
Maybe it all feels so heavy because we're all a little terrified of the dark, and every year ends in darkness.
I've been thinking a lot, in that darkness, about the gentleness of God.
In reflecting on the past few years, I've been struck by just how many people I know have experienced the loss of a loved one, confusion over purpose and faith, consistent loneliness, or some other variety of pain or trouble. It's literally everyone I know. I don't know anyone who has it together, and I don't know anyone who hasn't lost something, or isn't helping bear the burdens of someone who has. That fact — that we're all walking wounded and weary — has been impressed on me even more this past month, as conversation after conversation has proven that we all need some help and a listening ear.
This seems obvious, right? But it's not. It's never been. Our worlds (online and in person) are generally not friendly to vulnerability or brokenness, and never more so at Christmas, when we paste on our happy faces as best we can and get together to prove we're happy. And even when we do admit our need for help, listening ears are hard to come by.
I was talking with a friend the other day about the evangelical "culture of kindness," how we kind of ship-lap over the real, deep-down issues we face with a Magnoliesque makeover and an Instagram filter, toss out an "I'm praying for you" or an "I hear you" into the void, and then get on with living our own lives. We skate along the surface. And sometimes we excuse this by calling it kindness or gentleness. We don't ask or listen because we don't want to hurt someone's feelings, or intrude on their privacy, or because we don't have time and energy.
But when you actually have a conversation with someone who is curious, who asks questions because they want to know you and not because they want to end the conversation, who leaves some silence and space around things and just lets you unravel things in your own time... you begin to get a glimpse of what gentleness can really be. It's not about intrusion, or checking off the "was kind to someone today" box. It's about having a soft heart. It's about removing burdens where possible, and helping to bear them where not.
I've encountered this with God this past year. Whenever I turn to Him, however long it's been since we talked and whatever has happened since, He is there, constantly asking the right questions, constantly seeing the deepest burdens and longings within me before I do, and laying a finger on them.
Sometimes what He shows me is embarrassing and painful, but it is always softened by His mercy and love. He has shown me His gentleness this year, and through it I have begun to see, dimly, just how unendingly patient and kind He has been all my life long, as He gently woos me back to Him in every season. He is a shoulder to cry on, a burden-lifter, a resting place for the weary. He is always there. He always sees. He always knows. And He still shows up.
He's right there with you now, wherever and whenever you are reading this, and His eyes and arms and ears are open to you too.
This year I found myself commenting to Linnea that I wasn't stressed anymore about Christmas, I was just exhausted. Most Decembers carry with them a performance anxiety around musical and church and family events, and this year was not an exception. But I think I came to a point of equilibrium, something of a Zen "what will be will be" and I just surrendered myself to the Christmas current. I stopped fighting and just let December happen to me. I gave up trying to hold it all, trying to feel some sort of way, trying to be perfect. It helped.
I also thought, halfway through, maybe... Maybe I don't need to feel that insane pressure to leave 2023 behind so quickly. Maybe I can let the old year bleed into the new a little. Jumping right into the newness isn’t going to help me embrace it, or make me new. I need to sit with the old balloon a bit, maybe pinpoint why it got so many holes in it this year, and how I might cut some patches out of it to use on the new one when it gets torn. This is good and necessary work too.
And then I'm going to put it down, in Someone Else's hands.
Cheers, friends. I'm glad you're here with me in 2024.
C
Three Quick 2023 Things
I haven't really felt like doing a big list of favorite things from 2023. I may later. In the meantime, there are a few things I am proud of that happened this year:
In March 2023, I published my second full-length poetry collection, Masks and Mirrors. You might enjoy it, especially during the Lenten season.
In April 2023, I relaunched my twice-monthly poetry post as Five Lines, and I've loved the open-ended nature of this format. If you're looking for a little jolt of poetry in your life this year, sign up for only $5 a month.
And a kind-of-2023, kind-of-2024 thing: Back in January of the old year I wrote a very Grinchy New Year's piece called blessing the blasted new year. Mockingbird (one of my favorite publications for four years running) has just very kindly published that piece. That makes me very, very happy.
Cheers to the real, the deep conversations, genuine gentleness and our ability to accept it and give it. Oh, and cheers to a new week long holiday in January as per your other article- definitely in for that one!
This was so full of grace and breath and gentleness Chris. Cheers to letting the Spirit mend our balloons...year after year