Hello, !
This morning, it's the twelfth day of Christmas, and I am looking back at what I did in 2025 that mattered.
And to be sure you didn't miss it, we are also looking
back to what landed best and most often with our readers in 2025. You'll also find out more of what to expect in 2026.
Some years ago, I learned a practice for attending to what matters from two friends in a virtual writing group. The practice is to compile a list of “what I did that matters” this year.
Writing and sharing the list is a way to change the cultural games of self-improvement and outlandish goal-setting that typically come with the turn of the calendar. Rather than set New Year’s resolutions that strive for progress, perfection, and achievement (core values of white privilege, I’m seeking to resist), this practice looks back first and asks a question. What did I actually do last year that mattered? Maybe it
mattered to me. Or it mattered to people close to me. Perhaps it mattered to communities and groups where I invest my life’s energy.
By focusing on what we’ve really done, and the ways our vocations have unfolded, we see what matters in a more realistic and authentic way.
This practice, learned from Duane Bidwell and Frank Thomas, continues to evolve for me. Some years I share it on social media. Some years it never gets beyond my own personal journal. Other years I make it into a blog post. Making what we do, and how it matters, public is not simply a “humble brag.” It is an honest and life-giving way to contest cultural values that devour our well-being, exhaust our energy,
and erode the planet.
To be sure, there are some things we do that matter deeply, and which are too vulnerable to ourselves or our loved ones to share publicly. So I aim to share in ways I think will cause as
little harm as possible. Sharing about love and vocation is unavoidably risky, however. This is a risk I’m willing to take and for which I will own the responsibility.
Ten things I did that mattered in 2025
~ 1 ~
Cared for my parents and daily attended to medical, financial and everyday life questions and arrangements, including a move from one assisted living home to another and staying with my mom six nights in the hospital this fall. With essential partnership with my spouse, my brother, my parents, and many
caregivers, we are making a village to care for them, something challenging and life-giving all at once!
~ 2 ~
Supported my daughter in her second and third semesters of college, as she does remarkably well, studying landscape architecture,
learning life-skills, and keeping up with world news and politics.
~ 3 ~
Finished my sixth year of teaching at Union Theological Seminary (in May). What wonderful students, classes, colleagues, and time in NYC.
~ 4 ~
Continued expanding my vocational purpose to support ministers, professors, and writers. In all my work I aim to support, inform and inspire people so they thrive in their own vocations of spiritual work – in many geographical places, fields of study
and service, and with projects of many kinds. Grateful to work with a team of people who share my interests. Thank you, to the Three Minute Ministry Mentor Team, Adam DJ Brett, Elizabeth-Anne Lovell, Ally
Stonum, and Laura Edgar. Could not do it without you!
Six more big things that mattered in my life in 2025... I invite you to take a look! Then make your own list. I think you'll be glad you
did!
