new year Archives - chris wheeler

January 6, 2020January 20, 2021

milestones and markers: a year-end review

We’ve so enjoyed the year-end greetings we’ve been receiving in the mail recently, those check-ins that everyone instinctively sends out, to let everyone else know that they’re still alive and kicking. It’s a way to stay connected with loved ones who live far off, a way to look back and remember, a way to summarize a season.

Some years I’ve found it very easy to compare the events of my year with others. The accomplishments of kids, the lives of those who make a living writing stories, the books published and articles read and followers added. This kind of comparison can quickly start sucking all of the joy out of the many blessings I have actually received – smaller, perhaps, in my mind than they were in my heart at the time they occurred.

Our year had its share of difficulties, many unmentioned, even unresolved (perhaps like your year). And it had its share of joys, many unremembered, many potent and fragrant as an extinguished candle, held close for safe-keeping, like the family and friends we feasted with over Christmases here and miles from here.

In spite of all that conspired against true joy and peace in our lives, it has never been more evident to us that God breaks through and continues to do so in unexpected ways. Perhaps it is that resolve I’m sensing when I read the year-end stories of dear friends, a courage that says: whatever 2020 holds, we’ll make it through by the grace of God, as we did in 2019.

So what about 2019, then? Here are some personal highlights.

on the home front

In 2018, we moved into a new little basement house (The Grotto), living with my parents and sister. 2019 was spent making that house into a true home, learning to live with understanding and flexibility, and enjoying the three acres available to us in this place. I think a highlight of our year as a family was having an actual garden. We’re still feasting on canned and frozen produce we grew ourselves – mostly tomatoes, beans, and pickles.

But the biggest moment of the year was welcoming our fifth child, Digory John (affectionately known as #digdug), on Halloween. The days are passing too quickly for me to record all the delightful chaos occurring in our home, so you may have noticed my absence on this blog and social media the last few months. But maybe that’s for the best. It’s easier for me to be present when I’ve given up any expectation of having to display what’s going on in a feed. It’s not that I don’t want to share with you all the cute baby pics and notable events, just that I only have two hands and they’re always full to overflowing. And that’s okay.

on the writing front

In 2019, after an extended period of prolific writing since I started this whole crazy endeavor, I experienced my first real dry period – an extremely frustrating season where writing every word was like wrestling rocks out of an acre of hard soil. I share this as a milestone, because it taught me more than any other writing project, about myself and my dreams, about the craft of writing, and about the thing I believe every writer needs most: the courage to keep going. It’s not about recreating the moments of brilliance, it’s about showing up – even if you only write ten words.

But the whole year wasn’t this dry, of course.

In February I fulfilled a long-time dream of mine of getting something published with the Rabbit Room, a meditation on one of my favorite books of all time – the Wind in the Willows. Since then I had 20 pieces (poetry, non-fiction, reviews, etc.) published by some stellar online and print publications.

I wrote 30 blog posts this year for this site, including 12 sets of poems on the affections (here’s joy). Here are, not the top five, but five of my favorite posts from this year:

I joined an online poetry group in late 2018, and this group was the catalyst for almost everything poetic I’ve done this year. I went to Hutchmoot 2019, which was an eye-opening, affirming, and challenging weekend that left me comforted and excited about the future.

The biggest news of the year is that I published a book, and you can pre-order it here for purchase on January 14. (!!) I would not have been able to do this at all without the support of dozens of people – editors, encouragers, and family and friends who believed in me enough to make this a reality.

random things I enjoyed in 2019

And here’s a random list of things I enjoyed this year, in no particular order.

This Day (Wendell Berry) – Sabbath poems, best read aloud, alone.
Detectorists. Hilarious and kind and so, so British.
Basics with Babish. I love to cook, and I also love to watch this guy tell me what and how to cook.
The Whole Christ (Sinclair Ferguson) – A big spiritual theme of 2019 was reconciling law and grace, and this book hit the nail on the head.
Mid-90s and Eighth Grade – The grace in these movies is no small feat, but both made me cry.
I Am Easy to Find (The National) – Easily my top album of 2019.
Mockingbird. Grace, grace, grace, and yes, more grace. I love their style, I love that they repeat themselves about the nature of the Gospel.
This Tiny Desk concert.
Chernobyl. Incredibly written and scarily prescient.
Behold the Lamb of God livestream at the Ryman. This concert was pure joy.
Patrick (H) Willems. My favorite cinephile, all around nerd, and contrarian, and his parents are adorable.
Vulfpeck, just all of it. I can’t stay unhappy when I listen to these people.
The Habit Podcast (Jonathan Rogers). It’s good to know there are others seeking to consistently work out their vocations as writers, and to glean from their compiled insights.
Adorning the Dark (Andrew Peterson). This memoir and guide to the creative life was exactly the coda I needed to the year.
The Mandalorian. Because I needed to believe that people still care about well-crafted, fun stories and cute puppets.

looking ahead

I suffer from a rabid hunger to fulfill creative impulses, and I don’t think 2020 will be any exception. I have too many crazy ideas, astronomic expectations of how many I can execute, and the blind idealism to actually accomplish some of them. 2019 gave me a glimpse of the possibilities of self-publishing, collaboration, and good old-fashioned hard work. I’m excited to see what comes next.

But these words have been ringing in my ears all December, and I think they’ve been ringing for a reason:

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Philippians 3:7-11

May this year see all of us know Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings more deeply than ever before.

All glory be to Christ.

January 7, 2019January 20, 2021

the turning of the year

Linnea and I were discussing how the new year seems more overwhelming at the start than exciting. It’s as if we’re standing on a cliff daring ourselves to leap, having no idea what lies ahead or what condition we’ll be in when we get there. It’s not all that ominous; we have some pretty solid parachutes. It’s just the unknown, you know? That thing that crawls around the back of our heads sometimes and whispers things. At least as we look back we can see where we’ve been. Ahead, it’s unclear.

I suppose that it’s customary to begin a new era by contrasting it with the old, by looking back on the joys and sorrows of what we’ve seen and done. As I’m coming into the first full week of the new year (and coming up for air after very full holidays), I’m sensing the need to do this. Maybe it’s all the year-end letters sent and received. If you sent one of those to us – thank you! If you didn’t – send one! We love getting them. Maybe it’s all the lists popping up – lists of past year accomplishments, list of new year accomplishments to be had. Maybe it’s good old-fashioned nostalgia.

Whatever it is, here I am writing about it. What else is new?

in which achievement is eclipsed

Hear my confession, interwebs: I think about the past and future primarily in terms of achievement.

I turned thirty this year, and the inevitable comparison to my peers that is my constant companion (thanks Facebook) once again wrapped an arm around me and gave me an awkward side hug. Every day brings about new ways to compare my stage of life, my decisions, and my accomplishments with those around me. It comes in waves – this person got published, this person bought a house, this person’s child won a contest – and it’s always accompanied by the requisite reams of shame for not “achieving” those things by thirty, and guilt for the things I have “achieved” that others haven’t.

As if this was a race.

I don’t begrudge anyone their accomplishments – many of them should rightly be celebrated! Those things – small and large – are displays of growth, or at least signs of life, and we all want to know that we have grown and lived during the year. But what about those years that all we did was grow one year older? We’ve had several of those, and while hindsight has granted better perspective, we still wonder why they occurred. The idea that we somehow “built character” does little to redeem what seems like an awful waste of time.

We grew older this year, and we learned things – “built character” as some might say. We even celebrated some accomplishments – in ourselves and in our kids. But all of these things are kindling compared to the grace of a year given.

a fierce grace

The turning of the year may be a time-bound, man-made construct, but there is something important to looking back at a single orbit around the sun and realizing that we’ve been granted another. Here we are – urchins, who having been trundling around on this globe long enough to love and hate it in equal measure, who have lifted our bowls for more, and it has been given to us. For the time being, we are still here, and for the time being we are in a place to reflect on that fact. What grace is this that God says “one more year”? Perhaps to till around us and prune us until we bear fruit, perhaps to tarry so that others may come to Him, perhaps to give us time to screw up our courage to proclaim the good news of Christ to those around us… At this point the work is not completed, so God has given us another lap around the sun.

And that is, indeed, grace.

It is in this grace that the years take shape for us – old and new. This is a fierce grace that proclaims every new morning that our God is not inactive or docile. He is furiously at work making things new, proclaiming His glory in creation and through His Word and through His people. It is in this grace that all of our yearly achievements are seen for what they really are – precious metal or worthless stubble. And in this grace we have everything we need for the times that seemed worthless. For when we have achieved nothing, when we have fallen short, when we have fallen behind, when we feel worthless – God has given us, freely, Christ Himself.

I look back and I see the hand of God in the year – in the transition, in the work provided, in the opportunities taken and the words published, in the building of a home with all of its new challenges, in the simple joys and sorrows we shared. I see this, and I know that even as the years change, God does not. His love for us and His transforming power in us through Christ is what held us together this year, evident in His Word, His work, and His people.

This is what holds us together as we face the new year – the fierce grace of God has held us in the past. He is not absent. He is not disinterested. He is here – Emmanuel, God with us. And He will be here until the day we cease to orbit the sun.

So until that day:

May your past be lit by the light of Christ, that you may see it held.
May your future be lit by the promise of His presence, and the hope of His love.
May your present be filled to overflowing with His grace.

Here’s to the passing of the old and the coming of the new!

January 9, 2018January 6, 2021

invocation

We limped the last length of the year,
A year full of what could be
A year full of what wasn’t,
And the snapped promises of the past linger now
At the brink of another.
I am here, preparing for the plunge,
My breath fogging the future,
Glaring down the precipice to locate hand-holds,
Avoiding the inevitable.
This old year opened, like those before, with glint promise.
Years shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep.

The new year waits in an icy womb,
When color is drained, like the blood of the earth, into seedling veins.
We bubble with the announcement,
But she is now not yet among us
In the flesh of bud and blood of bloom.
Warmth rolls stones from crimson tombs,
And the dead will be born again.

Isn’t there inherent hope
In dawning, of things doing,
As there is in dusk, of death?
We are children of the promise
Long before we penetrate it.
We must live to the last before we begin.

Let the new things live a little.
Let the old things die.
Let all of it matter more, remembered and anticipated,
Pressed down, shaken together, running over,
An invocation,
A benediction,
A word.