No Crumbs

I’m not really given to resolutions. Statistically, they don’t really work, so there’s the pragmatic objection. But more than that, I object as well to starting the year with an emphasis on unworthiness, even Calvinist that I am. I still believe that, in this moment and in all the moments that will follow, God will not love us any less than God does right now. Nor will God love us any more after a program of self-improvement. 

So, if you read no further, start 2025 being reminded of your absolute belovedness. Full stop. 

It was Flannery O’Connor in her essay “The Church and the Fiction Writer” who deemed this paradox the “central Christian mystery” for the Church: “that it has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for.” But it’s a paradox I find comforting: God not only knows of all the “horrors” of human life, but God experienced them directly as Emmanuel. God never leaves us alone in the wreckage. Ever.

Perhaps the redeemable part of the urge towards New Year’s resolutions, then, is that they express a desire for intentionality. In our personal liturgical calendars, the turn of a new year at its best can bring a reminder that the habits of heart and mind that we practice (or don’t) are profoundly shaping. Perhaps we should consider these less resolutions and more inventories of spiritual health. 

This week, I was quite taken by a note in Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Substack. Celebrating her 33^rd year of sobriety, she observed: “The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the opposite of gratitude isn’t ingratitude, it’s entitlement.” That’s it, isn’t it? That’s going to be my orienting sentence for 2025. 

And it made me think of how, practically, to foster that habit. This past year, I’ve been drawn to writers and artists who have been focusing on cultivating joy: for example, it’s the center of Ross Gay’s books, such as Inciting Joy and The Book of Delights, and it’s a recurrent theme in the singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer’s Substack, A Gathering of Spirits. Both Gay and Newcomer focus on seeing joy in the everyday and encourage their readers to chronicle their own small joys. As a stay against “horror” and everything we bring with us into another year—and all that we can’t even imagine yet. And to do so intentionally. So, in that spirit, here are three things I’m looking forward to. What are yours?

Top Three Things I’m Looking Forward To

1. Reading: Jane Zwart’s first book, coming in October, Oddest and Oldest and Saddest and Best (Orison Books)
2. Travel: returning to a country that I’ve wanted to visit again for over 40 years and exploring a new country that I’ve been eager to learn more about 
3. Teaching: preparing a new class on Jane Austen and the history of the novel

To help, I’ve decided to pick a poem of the year, too. It’s a well-known one from Mary Oliver, but it names the paradox and celebrates the plentitude.

May your joy increase. Let’s not settle for crumbs in 2025. Happy New Year!

Don't Hesitate

by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash