New Years, North Stars, and Giving Ups

Some people gather together their hopes, dreams, experiences, and desires and choose a word for the New Year. It’s a word that might guide them, or bring clarity to their journey, or that might keep showing up in lessons thought the year.

Some people pick a Bible verse. Some people pick a quote. Other people pick a practice. It all amounts to the same thing: people pick something to act as a map for their upcoming journey around the sun.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this practice, but it’s never been something for me. I tried it a few times, and to be honest, I forgot about the word within two days. I’ve always been a concept person, and I’ve let my exploration of ideas and thoughts lead me where ever they take me.

The truth is, I don’t know what my map is going to be for this year. It’s unwritten, and I’m discovering paths as I walk them.

So much is so different now. I used to be confident in where I was going. I used to dream of a specific future. I used to hold to a particular hope. I don’t right now. Im like a ship adrift, nothing but the waves and unseen currents to take me where they will.

But I have the stars—o the stars. And in that vast array of beauty, there is one north star that is leading me at this time, one bright beacon that beckons me to navigate my life with, one bright nova to orient myself with.

Grief.

Grief lives in my body, deep in the bones of the cellular level. I have carried grief as long as I can remember. that’s what happens when your Mom dies before you can remember her. And the grief only compounded from there, hurts, wounds, injuries, all of it pieling on and on, my body remembering each and every one.

But I was told that grief was here because of sin. Grief wasn’t wrog of bad, but it was caused by a fallen broken world. So, I was taught to take my sadness, anger, disorientation, everythingn that grief is I was told to take to God, to give it to him, to lay it at the foot of the cross and to not take it back up. I was told to give my grief away without letting lady grief do her work in me. WandaVision captured this work beautifully. “What is grief if not love persisting?”

That line get’s me.

If I give my grief away, turn it over to God to “heal”, I am giving away the persistence of love.

perhaps this is why I was never good at giving away my grief; i clung to tightly to love.

So, I carry grief in my body, grief for what could have been, what should have been, what never will be.

And now, now a new grief has emerged. A new time of weeping has enterd the arena. A new sorrow has bloomed.

I am grieving leaving Christianity behind.

I have outgrown the container of my identity, my belief system, my hopes and dreams. Everything that I was born into, the pews I grew up in, the bible studies I suckled at, the prayer meetings I wobbly toddled in… all of it has become too small for me.

I don’t hate any of it. I don’t disparage it. I don’t even want to leave it behind. but, my roots have cracked the pot and I need more room to breathe, to stretch, to live.

I am not a small tree.

For years I have held together this identity as “a Christian” because it’s what I knew, what orientated me in the word, what nourished me. I might have changed the title a few times—it’s what happens when words or compromised and commandeered by lies, violence, and dominion—but what it was remained the same. After all, a rose by any other name would still be a rose.

I’m not leaving Christianity behind because I am deconstructing. I have done that many times. I have reconstructed many times. My faith has evolved and changed and shifted countless times. No, I’m moving beyond the container of Christianity because I am growing, as a person, as a believer, as a human.

I don’t know what all this means. I don’t know where I’ll end up. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know I am giving up holding things together in a container that is crushing against my roots. May the divine plane be in a orchard where I can spread and thrive.

So, I guess I do have a word for this New Year: grief. Grief at what I’m leaving behind. Grief that is finally surfacing in my body. Grief at the futures that may never be.

Grief is my north star right now. It’s not the final word though. It’s not the ultimate explanation of my experience. It is simply how I am orientating myself in these moments. It may last a week, a month, a year, many years. However long this season is, grief is my companion.

So a toast: to the New Year, to North Stars, and to Giving up. May lady grief walk softly beside me.

I am in the process of becoming a community chaplain with The Order of Hildegard. This program is designed to help form people into spiritual leaders that lead and serve from the margins. It’s for the people who don’t quite fit with the traditional church because of trauma, disability, or identity. If you, as my community, would like to help me fulfill the financial obligation this chaplaincy program has, you can give at the link below. Thank you for the myriad ways you support me.

If you’re aching to listen for God in the real stuff of life—grief, wonder, doubt, desire—I offer spiritual direction as a space to breathe and be heard. We listen together for the Spirit moving in the ordinary, the hidden, the in-between. No fixing. No formulas. Just presence, honesty, and room to be fully human before God.

If that sounds like what your soul needs, I’d love to walk with you