May You Find a Light

I cuss very sparingly. Not for moral reasons though it did start out that way. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I have spent so much of my career working around young people. Of course, some young people love it when an authority figure cusses, but I want to be respectful that different families approach profanity in different ways. Plus it is fun to play with language and exclaim “biscuits” like Bandit or “horse hockey” like the 4077’s Colonel Potter. Ultimately, I greatly value language. If you are just carelessly using cuss words all the time, or any words for that matter, they start to lose their meaning.

All of which is a prelude to saying that 2023 was a s*** year for our family.

Not that it was all bad. I got to fulfill a lifelong desire and stayed at a monastery for a weekend and it was a profoundly meaningful experience. We finally got to take our boys to Disney World and we ended up starting a podcast to talk about those memories. Furman finally made the NCAA Tournament and dramatically upset a #4 seed in the first round. We got to go on an Amtrak adventure and visit Canada. EA had a quilt go viral on Instagram. I got to laugh around tables with family and some friends.

But it also really, really sucked for reasons you may know and others you do not. Bad enough that at some point this past month EA googled something like “How to get rid of a bad year,” which brings us to our backyard sometime after 10 PM on New Year’s Eve.

I spent a good portion of the late afternoon hanging strings of bulb lights we have had for several years but never got around to putting up. EA and Liam started a fire in the fire pit. We burned cedar and cloves (per that Google search). We acknowledged that it had been a rough year, but we got through it together and next year would be better. Then we roasted marshmallows as the zombie remnants of Lynyrd Skynyrd played southern fried rock for way too many people in a park a few blocks away.

It was very simple. It wasn’t intentionally spiritual, which in a weird way made it profoundly spiritual for me. In the dark, cold night, I was sitting on an island of light and warmth with my three favorite people. I looked across the fire at EA and thought about how we spent the year alternating being lights for one another. I looked at my boys and—though parenting can be difficult—thought about the ways in which they had brought me joy even in some of the darkest days I have faced. And I remembered the God who is the string that connects and powers all of the lights that guide our way in the night.

The idea of a light in the darkness is prominent during this time of year in which the days slowly, almost imperceptibly grow longer. We light candles on Christmas Eve and shoot fireworks at the dawn of a new year. In Matthew, Jesus is said to be a great light to people walking in darkness. Hope, which is the belief in a goodness you cannot yet see, hangs heavily over Advent. What I am saying is that this season can be a good one for the weary soul if you know where to look.

In this new year, there will be challenges and there will be s***. Yet there will also be light and warmth. May we each find that light and share its loving warmth with those around us.