REFLECTIONS AS A YEAR GATHERS IN

These are days for a certain stillness as the year gathers in. All around us a postprandial torpor hangs smog-like in the air; needles fall from trees; left-overs fill fridges; a few brave souls slope half-heartedly back to dishevelled workplaces while the rest of the world continues its hibernation.

There is no better time in the Gregorian calendar for reviewing the closing year and preparing my heart for the one to come. For me this is always a highly personal moment but I’ve chosen to share my process here with you in the hope that it is helpful.

A review of the year is literally that - a ‘re-viewing’ - a looking again at the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen. It’s like climbing a mountain and pausing, as much to catch your breath as to catch the view. And in order to gain the necessary elevation for this kind of clarity a little effort is required. Remembering doesn’t work nearly so well when I rely merely on my memory (vague) and my current emotional state (variable). And so, the first thing I do is to sit down and make an actual, proper list...

(IDEA)LIST

I walk back through my year in two very practical ways (we’ll come to the prayerful bit in a moment):

1. Firstly, I review each week of the previous twelve months by working through my calendar quite meticulously listing it’s most notable events and experiences.

2. Secondly, I review my journal, but only at a fairly cursory level. It would be easy to get lost in the reeds of my own ruminations here, but I’m really not interested in my feelings on a particular Thursday in February after reading a verse in Leviticus while listening to the Foo Fighters. I don’t want a useful exercise in self-examination to turn into a self-indulgent orgy of self-absorption!

And now, drawing from these two sources - my calendar and my journal - I create a single list, broken down into twelve months with maybe four to six bullet points on each month. This list maps the highs and lows of my year, key things I’ve done and things I’ve learned but also where I’ve struggled. Where I’ve failed. Where life has hurt. This is not meant to be a show-reel. There’s no one to impress!

I draw this out by hand with an actual pen on actual paper using colours, creating doodles and even collaging a bit (a ticket stub, a photograph, a postcard). By drawing in this way I am deliberately enlisting the creative, empathetic limbic region of my brain. If I typed using only words on a screen I would be activating the logical, verbal centres of my frontal context to regiment information without meditation.  (At the end of this exercise I simply photograph my notes to log myself a digital copy.)

P R A Y E R  O F  E X A M E N

Having mapped the year’s key moments from my journal and my calendar I begin to pray through the list using the Ignatian Prayer of *Examen*. This way of praying will be familiar to those who use our Lectio365 night prayers. Throughout the year we review each and every day in this way. It’s a  powerful four-step process first developed by Ignatius and championed ever since by the Jesuits, which I practice like this:

# 1. R E P L A Y

Taking my map of the year, I pray through each line in the list. Sometimes its just a simple smile or a sigh as I remember something that happened, but other points may spark longer prayers. I particularly allow my heart to ebb and flow with rejoicing and repentance...

# 2. R E J O I C E

This is a moment for giving thanks to God for all the year’s blessings. He is faithful and kind and here on my piece of paper is the proof! This exercise is invariably fundamentally encouraging. Remembrance (with its accompanying sacrament) is the single most powerful tool available to the people of God by which we find joy in the past and hope for the future.

The American missionary Frank Laubach provides a beautiful example of such hope and joy, writing in his diary on January 3rd, 1930: “To be able to look backward and say, ‘this, this has been the finest year of my life’ - that is glorious!” Laubach was living some 8,000 miles from home, amongst the primitive Moro tribe, far from his beloved wife and children at Christmas time and yet his posture in reviewing the previous year and anticipating the one to come was exuberantly happy.

# 3. R E P E N T

But inevitably my mountain-top perspective will also be humbling, exposing patterns of habitual sin and broken behaviours in my life. The year hasn’t all been perfect and I acknowledge that this hasn’t always been someone else’s fault. Perhaps I’ve been angry or relationally distracted? Lustful or lethargic? Maybe I’ve given in to some ‘besetting sin’? Wherever I see sinful patterns I simply repent. I don’t beat myself up. I just acknowledge my failures to God and actively receive his grace.

At this point I may also lament, expressing my deep sadness wherever the year has brought pain and even heart-break. I recognise that sin is not just inside me. It is in other people too and I am deeply affected by their choices as well as the broken systems of the world in which we all live. This past year has been one of the toughest of my life. I have plenty of lamenting to do.

# 4. R E B O O T

Having reviewed, rejoiced and repented looking backwards at the year gone by, I now turn to face the year to come and ask myself how I might become more like Jesus? I write down a simple, attainable, unambitious plan. Nothing too onerous. A few bullet points focused less on what I want to achieve in the year to come and more on who I want to become.

It’s important to make this list measurable and practical. For example, I wouldn’t just say “I want to be kinder this year”. That’s way too vague. Instead I might say “In order to be more present to people this year Im going to schedule an extra ten minutes before every meeting to prepare myself and to pray for those with whom I’m about to meet.” Similarly I wouldn’t just say “I want to become more like Jesus this year”. Instead I might say “I’m going to read a chapter of a devotional book each Sunday and I’m going to go to bed earlier to get more sleep!”

FRACTALS

As someone who often feels like a failure, I find that reviewing the year in this way helps me live with greater objectivity and intentionality.

It often reveals a surprising symmetry emerging from the chaos of my daily frenzy. Experiences of great sadness and joy, which seemed isolated at the time, reveal themselves to be fractals of a greater unfolding pattern. Much to my surprise I notice ways in which I’ve changed, lessons I am finally learning, and evidence of God’s prevenient grace growing between the cracks of my days and weeks and months.

In other words I leave the dying year behind with greater gratitude and a heart cleansed by confession. And I venture into the new one with greater peace and hope, reminded that the One who has been faithful to me every step of the way will never leave me nor forsake me and that he is slowly forming me into his likeness, moulding and maturing me with every passing year. The eternal God does not define me by where I’ve been but by where I am going, not by what I’ve done but by who I’m becoming. He sees me as I will one day be, made perfect in Christ, transformed from glory to glory, clothed in the righteousness of his own dear Son (Gal.3:27).

This is precisely the perspective of the Apostle Paul writing affectionately to the church in Philippi he says:

“I thank my God every time I remember you,” he says, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” ~ Philippians‬ ‭1:3-6‬

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