Commissioned for an advent reflection for Christ City Church in DC, but I loved doing it so much I wanted to share it here (and maybe make it a regular thing!)
Things That Bring me Joy (2022)
Deciding to make an advent calendar of crisps for my friend.
Deciding to make an advent calendar of crisps for myself.
Crisps.
Stroopwaffles
Super Noodles
Leftovers for breakfast.
How proud my teenage self would be
of how often my adult self wears trackies.
Spikeball - The idea that someone looked at volleyball
and thought what this is missing is a trampoline
That sleeping, reading, and writing poems
can never be a waste of time.
Clearing my inbox
Turning my phone off
Being out of breath
Crying. Especially in films.
Fireworks.
How little I care if your dog doesn’t like fireworks.
Mainly because of how much I care about almost everything else.
Robbie Williams’ Christmas album.
Especially the song entitled “Happy Birthday Jesus Christ."
Specifically the line where he describes the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 to
“Love that thing that you did with the scampi”
Self-Esteems latest album.
Everything else Self-esteem does.
Finding out that Stormzy plays both Wordle and Nerdle
and taking this to be further evidence
that we could indeed be really good friends.
Watching the lionesses win the Euros
The football World Cup (every year except this one)
Committing to screen Christmas films instead of the England games this year
as a form of festive peaceful protest.
Musical Bingo
Only Connect
Taskmaster
Ted Lasso
My Yellow Wellies
A decent Whatsapp group
My nieces
How much my wife loves birdwatching
When anyone is enthusiastic about anything
That I am on a mailing list for a company that makes reusable baking parchment
Simply because I bought a small amount 5 years ago.
They email precisely once a year to see if I need any more
and I still don’t because the original batch I bought is just so reusable.
That time I did a wee that lasted longer than a minute.
The fact that I timed it
The fact that I am sharing that with you
That fact that at least some of you will go away and try the same.
Spending 3 hours playing a star wars based board game with my neighbour
The moment we both happen to have a day off.
Margate.
Writing a poem about my favourite sandwich for my local cafe in March.
Getting paid for that poem in the form of 50 free sandwiches.
9 months later, That turning out to to be a more reliable currency than the British pound.
That $44 billion dollars can’t buy you happiness.
That £2.90 can buy you an advance train ticket from London to Bognor Regis.
How hard it was to think of things when I started this list vs
How hard it was to stop once I got going
The thought that at least some of you might go away and try the same.
The fact that the start of this year
was possibly the lowest I have ever felt
and yet here I am
Being prayed for
Being held
Being Warm
Being vulnerable
Being open
Opening a packet of crisps.
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