2023 – an examen

Flopped flat under a leaf, like a fluffy-butt bug (officially known as a ‘passion vine hopper’) letting go of its fanned tail — that is the picture which sums up 2023 for me.

But it’s all good. Or mostly good. Because, you know, as a fluffy-butt bug lets loose its grand tail and simply sits against the underside of a leaf, the Creator transforms it from a gawky nymph into a gorgeous moth with lacy, transparent wings.

An Ignation Examen

At this time of year, I like to take time out to prayerfully review the year past and look to the year to come. Using a form of the ‘Ignatian Examen’ provides a helpful structure.

Step 1: Become aware of God’s presence

Step 2: Review the year with gratitude

Step 3: Pay attention to your emotions

Step 4: Choose one feature from the year and pray from it

Step 5: Look toward the new year

https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/examen-prayer-for-the-year/

The ‘one feature from the year’ (step 4) from which I prayed was the image of those backyard fluffy-butt bugs dropping their tails and just ‘being’.

Of course, the image is over-simplistic. Those bugs munched my weeds and beloved backyard blooms both. They were always going to be transformed and their willingness – or not – to hang on to their fluffy posterior plumages was irrelevant.

But the imagery, far from literal or exact, works for me.

Drop that fluffy tail 1- health

I’ll spare you the details, but ‘Good Gut Health’ was my goal for 2023. Throughout the year past, I regularly saw a doctor, a gastroenterologist, a dietician and a psychologist specialising in IBS, all to no avail. I had a gastroscopy and colonoscopy (again – this was the third time over the past 16 years). I was prescribed medications and recommended over-the-counter herbal concoctions.

“Have you ever considered that God might be allowing this ‘thorn in the flesh’ for his glory?” a white-haired wise woman asked at one point. (Most people ask if I have faith that God could heal me … and I do … but he hasn’t.)

Yes, I had considered it. But I don’t want it.

‘Incremental improvements’ is all we can hope for, explained the specialist. There is no ‘magic bullet’.

When one over-the-counter herbal supplement he had recommended (Iberogast) became unavailable for several months late in 2023, I tried another. And you know what? That one is helping a lot!

For the curious, this newest supplement is a powder containing slippery elm and turmeric (Nutra-life Gut Relief).

When I finally stopped trying, answers came.

The IBS isn’t healed, but it has definitely improved. I’m SO very grateful.

Drop that fluffy tail 2 – academia

I’m in way over my head.

Who am I to think that I have the capacity or the context to work on a doctorate (a Doctor of Ministry)?

This became even more apparent in semester two of 2023. The subject was ‘Partnerships’. The agency through which I work has ‘partnerships’ as one of our core values. The subject was relevant and important. I attended an intensive week of classes, then all that was left to do was three assignments.

Assignment one: Read [certain prescribed materials] and write a reflection on how they apply to your setting. Problem: I was travelling in Asia and didn’t have much time. Thankfully, the material had been provided for us and could be downloaded. I snatched pockets of time to read here and there, making notes as I went along. Points of application were plentiful, but when was I to write it up? The assignment was due the day after I returned home to my computer. Exhausted from the overnight travel, that was the same day that I tested positive to covid. And all I had were notes upon notes in my iPad.

I threw it all together somehow and hit ‘submit’. The lecturer commented that my reflections were rather informal but insightful, nonetheless. Phew.

Assignment two: Interview someone who has established partnerships, transcribe the interview, then video-record your reflections. I was well-organised, over-confident, and asked our ‘international partnerships director’ for an interview weeks beforehand. He replied, asking for more details, which I provided. Then I waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally, I chased him up. He was about to board a flight for important meetings somewhere far away and, of course, had forgotten all about little old me. I don’t blame him. I asked a team-mate who has been involved in some interesting partnerships if he could help me, and he immediately complied. I transcribed the interview right away. Thankfully. Because then my little world was turned upside-down.

I won’t explain how life suddenly went haywire for a few weeks, because it involves other people and the story isn’t mine to tell. Suffice to say that, in the midst of other higher priority activities, I typed up some insights from my ‘option two interview’, balanced my phone on top of a crate on top of a box on my bed (I had a guest staying, hence using the bedroom), hit ‘record’ and talked. Within half an hour, the job was done and the assignment submitted. If I scraped a pass, it would do.

The lecturer loved it!

Assignment three: Drawing on everything you have learned this semester, devise a framework for partnerships in your context and present this in a scholarly essay. Again, the above-mentioned crisis left me little time to work on this. In fact, I consciously decided to not even think about the essay until the week it was due, as I had other priorities.

While I tossed together a ‘Pad Thai’ that final week of semester, it occurred to me that this dish lends itself to a ‘framework for partnership’. (I’ll blog about that soon.) We had been given excellent class notes. So I photographed my cooking efforts, skimmed over class notes, and churned out an essay expounding ‘A Pad Thai Framework for Partnerships’. Again, I figured that if I scraped a pass, it would do.

“Creative, but not at all scholarly,” wrote the lecturer. “‘A slosh of soy sauce’ and ‘a dash of chilli sauce’ – this is far from appropriate academic language at this level.”

True. Yet he gave me a good mark, just the same.

And now the semester is over. The results are out. A high distinction?!! For a subject effectively completed on the run?!

I learnt a lot. Some of what I learnt was from the class itself. I also learnt plenty from asking good questions of a colleague and am inspired to do that more often in the year to come. And I also learnt again the life lesson of accepting my limitations and being content to just do what I can. Drop that fluffy-butt tail of trying to make myself look more than I am and just ‘be’.

Drop that fluffy tail 3 – relationships

As I look back over 2023, there have been some rough spots. Those stories aren’t mine to tell either. In most cases, I have been on the periphery of pain and confusion, but with a role to play, nonetheless.

I wish I could make everyone happy and healthy, in harmony with those around them.

But I can’t. About all I can do is to put metaphorical ointment on the wounds of people who rub their own rough edges against those of other people … and sometimes that includes me.

There are times when I must say what needs to be said, despite the discomfort. There are occasions when I can listen sympathetically without trying to ‘make everything better’. I need to be quick to pray for the shalom of those about me and slow to attribute negative motives to ‘the other’.

I wish I could say that despite me ‘letting it go’, God has done his work to present us all complete, perfect in Christ (Colossians 1:28).

But alas, we’re still a messy lot. Nevertheless, we are works in progress.

Looking to 2024

And now the new year is upon us.

I hope for health, happiness and harmony for all those I hold dear. Of course.

The year past hasn’t always been easy. Yet God has been faithful. As he will continue to be in the year to come, come what may.

This past year, my goal was ‘good gut health’. This coming year, I’m aiming for something simpler … I think. It is this: ‘Just do the next right thing.’

In other words, when it is time to surrender your fluffy butt tail that makes you feel so big and important, just let it go. When it is time to grow long spindly legs and sprout wings, just let it happen. Don’t strive to transition from a gorky nymph to a gorgeous moth through our own ability. That’s God’s work. My responsibility is simply to do the next right thing.

Happy New Year, friends.