Slowing down so that Joy can catch me

A New Year's Resolution

This may surprise you, but a lot of writers are hypocrites.

It’s not that we don’t mean or believe what we say. What I mean is that, often, the audience of the writing includes the writer themselves; unearthing a belief or truth for their own sake. We exhume assurances and hopes that we may not ourselves fully embody.

When I wrote Advent is a Homecoming, I knew I was doing this. I had gathered wisdom from other writers, life experience, my time with people experiencing homelessness, and wrote about what I know is true but I don’t always demonstrate. It wasn’t, “I live like this and you should too” but more like a confession: “Life could be better if we believed this, and lived like it.”

In my reflections on peace and joy, especially, I wrote from a vulnerable unknowing. Of the four themes of Advent, “peace” and “joy” feel the most like strangers to me. I’ve known them at times and in spurts, but find myself often more familiar with the feeling of their absence than of their presence. In both those essays, I suggested—again, to myself first—that our inability to access or receive them comes from an unwillingness to let them in, or a tendency to block them altogether through an endless pursuing.

I argued that those of us who do helping work are especially prone to feelings of chaos and joylessness because we keep ourselves too busy in all that is left undone—all that isn’t right in the world—to claim peace now or to recognize joy when it emerges in the wild. My favorite thing that I wrote in the whole project appeared in the Affirmations for Joy: “I will keep my heart open, even when it hurts. There’s nothing my heart can’t take; there’s nothing my heart won’t receive.”

My New Year’s Resolution is to actually try this—to not just be a writer but a practitioner. In a year where the temptation will be to speed up, get busier, and worry more, I’m going to invest in peace and joy.

Let’s be clear: there is so much work to do, and I will always do my portion and then some. I will keep writing, keep advocating, keep working, keep fighting. But I’m also going to slow down to the rhythm that my humanity deserves, and leave enough room to experience the world worth fighting for.

Because what I’ve realized this Advent is that the pace at which I have been working actually isn’t rooted in love, it’s rooted in fear. If I’m honest with myself, the reason that I refuse to slow down is because I’m afraid of what will catch up with me:

• panic attacks

• doubts about my closest relationships

• self-hatred

• existential dread

• nihilism

It’s hard to admit, but “fighting for justice” can itself be a numbing agent when I use it to try and outrun doubt and despair.

But the people who love me most in this world have been trying to tell me something, and I think I’m finally starting to wonder:

What if something good is trying to catch me?

What if what I’m actually outrunning is:

• contentment?

• peace?

• joy?

• grace?

• God???

This year, I’m going to risk slowing down—and have faith that whatever catches me will be better than being chased all the time. Even if it means some of the scary stuff will catch me, too, I’m going to let Love find me and surprise me. I will have hope that life is actually meant to be lived and not just strived for, even while working for the world we all deserve.

The space I create by not overworking must be filled with connection: with my wife and my sons, with old friends and new ones, with agenda-less conversations and meet-ups, time spent in public and nature.

This is my New Year’s Resolution, and I’m telling it to you so that I won’t forget it—and because maybe you’re in this place too.

May we all move at a pace urgent enough to keep us all moving forward, and slow enough for joy to catch up with us.

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