The year in review; the decade ahead

I never would have expected that 2009 was going to change my life so much. I wasn't even looking for a change necessarily — life in 2008 and before was hardly bad. I think life before this year just wasn't sustainable. It's not the place I would have seen us as ten years hence. 2009 brought a lot of changes that have led to a lot of rooting, which will probably define the next ten or twenty years of our lives.

In the spirit of all the year-end top ten lists going around the internet, I'm choosing to share ten moments that changed the course of our lives this year, in no particular order:

1) The first three events would all stem from a single moment in the back corner of a Wal-mart where I tried out a Razor scooter and found that I could actually sort of balance on it. I'm not an athletic type or an outdoorsy type but there was something about the exhilaration of actually achieving balance that made me want to become that type of person. So this past summer Amanda and I and Corin took to the bike path along Alki like never before, me on my scooter, Amanda and Corin on her new bicycle, and we spent almost every other day outside. We'd been living across from the beach for two years, but a great deal of those two years were spent in exhaustion from a newborn, and somehow we'd never made it a habit to get out and enjoy the long walks. This year, even when not on my scooter, I would clamor to get out and take Corin in the stroller on hour-long walks. It just confirmed for me that Alki really is our home, and not just a wish of a dream of an ideal.



2) Which would come in really handy in a few months, when we were put in a position of being pressured to move out of our comfy and lovely apartment, and the rest of the city was suddenly open to us again as possibilities. I sometime wonder if I hadn't been out and about finally enjoying Alki if I would have said: Look, we gave it 2 1/2 years, but we never got out of the apartment as much as I would have liked, so let's consider some other priorities as we're buying a house. As it was, we knew we wanted Alki, we knew we needed 900+ square feet, and we knew our budget, which left us with exactly one place to consider moving to. More than anything else, this condo is going to shape much of the course of our lives over the next decade at least, earning it a prominent spot on this list.



3) The scooter also prompted me to start this blog (see the first post, "I got me a scooter"). I was just so excited that it finally clicked with me that if I were to write a blog it didn't have to be deep and heavy with every entry, but just a series of things that pique my interest or emotions. It's hard for me to imagine life pre-blog now. I feel much more like a writer than I did before, not only because I'm producing material again after several years of stalled nothingness, but because I am belaboring my writing less and less. When I was writing only one piece a month I would work it to within an inch of death because it was going to stand forever as one of my few pieces. The volume of output for a blog allows for a more free type of writing, and I'm loving that. I also find that the practice of spending my days looking for little cute stories to share about Corin makes me appreciate and connect to him more, that finding little funny links puts me in more of a positive frame of mind, that connecting to the friends of mine who read the blog is a nice way of deepening friendships even if we don't see each other often enough. I used to try journaling and would always give up after a few months because I'd self-analyze things to death; having a more public daily outlet to write keeps me on a better, even keel.

4) Related to my more free, less belabored writing is the fact that I started a book this December. As it turns out, I stalled out on my progress on the 18th as getting ready for Christmas took precedence. I only just got back into it yesterday on the 28th so I'm not going to hit my word goal for the month. But it's still four times as far as I every made it in my previous attempts to write a book-length examination of meeting God in everyday moments. I can see my way through to the end, even if it is going to take probably 8-12 months to complete. The idea of finishing anything of significant length is exciting. I can't wait to have a completed manuscript, even if it is never formally published, to give to a lot of the people I care about.



5) A year ago, I was somewhat forlorn about the state of the American church, in particular our public image. The megaphones all seemed to be in the hands of people who spoke with self-congratulation and rampant bigotry, with no mention of the love and grace of God, only superiority and feigned righteousness. Those who would be more conciliatory and calm went too far in gutting the gospel message into a feel-good mish-mash of relativistic self-help. I almost didn't click on the link on Time.com to an article saying "Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop," figuring it was going to be someone like John Shelby Spong with some new watering down of Christian beliefs. But instead it was an article on esteemed theologian N.T. Wright, who I'd encountered in my Christian circle several times before but never seen mentioned in mainstream publications. The article was a preview of Wright's book "Surprised by Hope," which I finally read this year, and it has instantly become probably one of my top five favorite books (if I did such rankings) and a book that is restoring my hope the possibility for the real Christianity to break through the smokescreen of outrageous attention-seekers and capitulating self-helpers. Wright even appeared on The Colbert Report to plug his book. I recently read the amazing Shane Claiborne in Esquire magazine, of all places. These are people I admire who live and who speak the truth, who inspire me to love God all the more and renew my passion and conviction as a Christian. (I have so far neglected to excerpt from "Surprised by Hope" on my blog, mostly because I am intimidated by somehow misrepresenting it, but I hope to remedy my misgivings about that in the coming year.)

6) I was cagey about this before, and I'll remain somewhat vague about it now, but since we let the cat out of the bag in our Christmas letter: in November I attended an informal gathering of people who were doing what's known as "simple church" in their homes around the Seattle area (mostly as a way of trying to gain some encouragement in what I've been doing with trying to launch my Christlikeness Groups ministry, in which I've felt somewhat alone). Instead, I met some people who we clicked with and with whom we are starting a new home-church plant, something that I've always wanted to do but was settling for half-measure expressions in my small-group leadership opportunities. My hope is that our lives are definitely taken on a new path by this leap of faith.

7) It's hard for me to pinpoint an exact moment, but this year Corin turned into a real human being. It's a new era as a parent. He's not just a monkey who can point to things and laugh, as much fun as that is. We can carry on conversations. He can understand words other than nouns. He is aware of his feelings. I love that. I love getting to know him.



8) Reading Amanda's novel for the first time this spring felt like a transformative event. She definitely has commercial potential in her future, so it might well effect the course of the next decade for us, but regardless, simply to hear her fiction-writing voice in such extended form was a delight to immerse myself into. I appreciate being able to give her time and space to do that writing, and to enjoy the final results. There was a "this is really happening" excitement to those two days of mostly unfettered rushing through the pages.

9) Amanda and I met a new friend this year with whom we've made time to hang out with more regularly than virtually anyone else we've ever known. It's rare to find those connections, and we look forward to the impact we'll have in each other's lives well into the new decade and beyond. Casablanca, the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and all that jazz.

10) Last, and pretty definitely least, I decided to dress somewhat more my age this year. I didn't go the full dress-suit of course, not working in an office, but it seemed to me that, looking in the mirror, the ring T's and even the solid henleys came across as too late-twentysomething for my rapidly graying self. I went to casual dress shirts, and they look more the part. (Jeans of course still stay.) As someone who had sort of steadfastly refused any fashion reflecting responsibility and normalcy, I'm actually enjoying catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and seeing ... maybe a step more toward sophisticated. I imagine that this new look will define much of the next decade for me, and, like all of these changes, it's a potentiality I'm excited about having embraced.