WLSU: What I Learned in 2024

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I want to do something I don’t normally do. I want to look back on this past year and name a few things I learned in 2024. I wouldn’t normally do this because, frankly, who the hell am I to tell you what I’ve learned, as if it could be relevant to you? It’s a little cocky. So when I say I learn them, please know I am guessing you probably already knew all these things yourself. So rather than learning anything from me, you get to just be proud of me for finally catching up with you!

It's also worth saying that most of the things I learned this year, I did not learn for the first time. At least I think I’ve thought them before. But in this last year, these four things sang out more loudly, more clearly than they ever have before. So this is more like four things I relearned. I tend to resist New Year’s resolutions, but I will say as I look forward to 2025, I am hoping to hold these things a little more closely than I have in the past. So without further ado, here are four things I learned in 2024.

1. Rest Matters. In the late spring and summer I took a four-month sabbatical from work. It’s a bit of an extreme way to figure out that rest matters. But I have not taken such an extended period of time off of working since I turned 18. And of course it was an extreme privilege to be able to do so and know that I had a job to which I would return. Countless books and think-pieces have been written on the need to rest, and I’m not sure what wisdom I can add. I can only tell you that I resist rest, have resisted rest for a long time. And it took really resting to realize how much of my one wild precious life I spend trying to prove that I am doing enough, trying to be enough.

Rest is so important that it’s even one of the 10 commandments. God institutes one day a week called Sabbath and insists that people observe it by doing nothing. I think we resist this commandment more than any of the others. Probably because regular rest thwarts our stubborn insistence that we need to earn our place. Regular rest as a commandment is radical because it imbues rest with moral value. Rest as a commandment means that rest doesn’t depend on earning. Rest is necessary for your wholeness. I rested and found out I still had all sorts of reasons to exist. I rested and found out I actually liked who I was when I wasn’t trying to prove anything.

2. Life Goes on Without Me. I run a church. It’s difficult not to get a little self-important now and again. People defer to me a lot even when I don’t want them to, even when they don’t want to. It just sort of happens. People rely on us, and we let them. We even like it a little. It goes back to that proving thing. Many clergy get burned out because we let ourselves stew in systems that say they wouldn’t know what to do without us.

So I left. And they were fine. During my sabbatical, I would sometimes drive by the church on the way to somewhere else. I actually had a rule that I would only drive by the church if avoiding it would take me too far out of my way. I remember driving by one day and seeing some tables and chairs on the front porch that hadn’t been there before. I didn’t know whose idea that was or who approved it. It couldn’t have been me, because I wasn’t there. It made me so happy. It turned out not being needed was a delight!

You might think being necessary is an ego booster. Well, it might boost your ego, but it drains your soul. And besides, it’s bad theology. Finding out I wasn’t necessary gave me something I had been missing: Perspective.

3. Life Also Goes on with Me. Sure I found out I wasn’t needed. But, you know, there is something better than being needed: Being wanted. Sometimes people will say that God needs us. I don’t buy it. I don’t think God needs us one bit. I think God wants us. And I have to tell you, being wanted feels endlessly better than being needed. Being needed is exhausting. Being wanted is a joy.

My kids and I were on a beach in Italy and they were playing in the water. There was a moment when they wanted to go in the water without me, because they wanted to prove they didn’t need me – that they could do it. And they could. They didn’t need me. But then after a few minutes, they yelled for me to come and join them. Not because they needed me to rescue them from waves, but because they wanted me to be part of the fun they were having. Endlessly better to be wanted.

I felt this at the Church of the Redeemer as well when I came back. I found out that this community that doesn’t need me wants me. And that’s something.

4. The Way Forward is Together. I learned this twice. The first time was while I was on sabbatical. I realized that, while I did need rest, I missed my community. I don’t mean that I missed working. I didn’t. I missed the people. I missed worshipping with them, learning with them, sharing life with them. We are made for community. All of us. We cannot do this life alone.

And I want to say this emphatically to Christians, because I am a Christian, and because too often Christians get suckered into thinking that our faith is about how we as individuals live our lives. But our faith is meant to be lived out in loving community. Our salvation is not individual – it is found in relationship and connection.

The second time I learned this was on November 6^th. A split electorate. A split country. No mandate. No landslide. Only 1.5% of votes separating Trump from Harris. And neither receiving a majority. A decision that highlighted our division. Maybe all this should’ve made me feel like the only way forward is apart. But it did not.

What I felt for my country was strangely like what I felt for my church while I was on sabbatical: A yearning for community, and the conviction to find it, to forge it. I believe now more than ever that the way forward is together, and I am going to keep that at the front of my mind in 2025.