If there was one resolution I’d love for all of us to really invest in this 2024, it would be to invest in two things; goodness and curiosity.
I hate to name it before it arrives, but wisdom would tell us it’s going to be a particularly ugly year. Rather than bemoan it and be angry and sad, I’m feeling particularly empowered to prepare for it.
As I see it, the world is upside down right now, but it is also full of goodness. Both things can be true at once.
This is something I try and teach our kids. Goodness is not hard to find if we look for it. But we are constantly being taught narratives of cynicism and despair that it feels silly to talk about goodness and hope. Or it feels wrong to have a happy day when so much madness exists.
A great thing I’ve taken from one of my favorite teachers Fr. Richard Rohr is to accept the partial truths in things. We tend to be very dualistic right and wrong, this or that, good or bad. But sometimes, perhaps more often than not, there’s a bit a truth even if the thing isn’t fully true. And we should still accept that piece of it or of someone, or something rather than reject it all.
I could say “everywhere I look things are falling apart.” But that’s not really the truth. It’s not the whole truth. Because the truth is 2023 was actually one of the best years I’ve ever had. Yes, my privilege is acknowledged in that, but I assure you that even saying this, my heart carried a heaviness it has not carried before. Both things are true at the same time.
I look back on moments of deep, deep loving connection to my fellow human and found ways to really celebrate that beauty all the while grieving a humanity that also seems to be falling apart.
But so often the latter overtakes the former there.
And to put it simply, I am refusing to accept that. That’s a choice I have to work towards every day. It takes work, but I do so with intentionality.
I am a Christian so there is language that I cling to. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
And while by faith, I might have a name for this light, I think the hope of this statement has a universal way of empowerment. I find it to be true.
There is a light in this world. Found in each of us. Found in art and music. Found in gathering together for joy or sorrow. Found in the kindness of strangers. Found in the setting and rising sun. There is goodness cooked all around us and I feel a desperate need to both name this and connect myself to it and to not turn blind to it.
There is a wonder to it all that gives me hope. We can get so bogged down in the lament of “why do all these bad things happen?” but may it not feel silly or aloof to ALSO ask “why do all these good things happen?”
Before this election year gets to it’s heights we must do the work of goodness and curiosity for one another.
We have to find each other. We have to bring out the goodness in one another, even if it’s a gracious partial truth in our minds. We have practice this kindness and knowing of our neighbor before we are all consumed with the divisive ways of corrupted power systems depending on our cynicism and hatred to gain control.
Democracy won’t die with a candidate. It will die when we refuse to call forth the goodness of each other and to speak truth to the lies that divide us.
Give grace to the partial truths without rejecting your neighbor entirely. If greater division is knocking at our door invite people closer and build a bridge where others would build a wall. We have to see one another rather than be told about one another.
There is nothing simple about the practice, but I do believe we must become familiar with the people around us. We have to see each other beyond the faceless categories of “them.” We have to find the individuals, know their stories, and we have to seek out goodness.
I’d so rather be exhausted trying to love and know, than burnt out and rotted with hate. I’d rather expend my energy building than fighting.
Invest in this now while it is easier. And cling to what is good when it is difficult.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
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