Disruption, it would seem, is a friend of 2024. Seven days into the year, I tested positive for Covid while at a theological conference. Holding tissues in my fist as I drove home, I tried to find some good in it. If I claimed I trusted God, I told myself, that trust had to extend to situations like this. For all my stern self-talk, my confidence wavered as I lay languidly in bed.
A few days later, I found myself on a plane back to Christchurch, courtesy of my mother who was desperate to feed her recovering eldest child. I made no protest to the vegetarian feast awaiting me. I squeezed my tall teenage brother extra hard on his return from work. But Christchurch, too, brought disruption to my already weary mind. The details have been processed in writing that will never haunt the Internet. Suffice to say: I cried.
“Makes me wonder what it bodes for the year ahead”, I texted a friend of my new shadow, Disruption.
Of course, I am no stranger to her. Disruption has met me before, often bringing good (hard) lessons in her wake. I haven’t always known her to be negative. Sometimes she’s downright chipper (!) as she brings me a new friend or unexpected joy through a challenging situation at work. I like her in her sunny moods and am open to her in her greyer states.
2024 Disruption, however, is all storm. She’s brought only dark clouds and wears a look of grim relish on her face. Is she going to be here all year? I’ve wondered to myself while folding laundry, watching Law and Order with my brother, patting the cat who hangs out in the park. Her shadowy presence keeps me in perpetual unease.
*****
As many of my fellow Arts students will know, the English word, essay, comes from the French verb, essayer – to try. That’s all an essay is, an attempt to try and work something out, however imperfectly, in writing.
This year, I want to try and write 52 essays – one per week – on whatever is rattling around in this maximalist brain of mine. It’s a mission inspired by Annie B. Jones, who undertook this exact project around a decade ago on her now-archived blog. I loved reading Annie’s takes on small-town life, books and faith. Auckland is far from a small town, but the rest checks out. I’d like to see if I can spin any gold from the hay of my ordinary life.
If my takes are sophomoric (as they no doubt will be – apologies in advance), then so be it. I am in my sophomore year of writing consistently, and I make no great claims to originality. I’m choosing to trust Madeleine L’Engle when she says it doesn’t matter that it’s been said before, or even that it’s been said better. What matters is that it’s said by me. I want to “add to the beauty” as Sara Groves sings, while looking for proof that “redemption comes in… small spaces.”
This concept of trying, essaying, in stuffy English, is something I want to carry through into other areas of my life this year.
I want to try new things, yes – recipes, teaching techniques, forms of exercise. But the imperative essayer goes beyond forays into the Smitten Kitchen archives. In the face of Disruption, trying goes a long way in escaping the clutches of Despair.
I have to try and find new ways of thinking about the contours of my days. I can’t be stamping them all with ‘FAILURE’ just because I haven’t achieved one particular thing.
I have to try taking God at his word when he tells me that he has good plans and purposes for my life. (Even typing out this sentence makes me roll my eyes – clearly, I’ve got a long way to go).
I have to try – hear me whisper it – to have hope.
Trying, of course, will only get me so far. So much of life involves an open-handed receiving of grace, even if that grace doesn’t always look like what we wanted or asked for. Trying doesn’t in and of itself bring grand revelation, it only ensures we are open to it.
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