What I Learned Winter 2020-2021

This season--perhaps more than ever--I've been made aware of just how much I learn that I don't actively take note of in reflection. I fell off the journaling about my days bandwagon many years ago, and I've had many false starts trying again. The following lessons were just the ones that struck me enough in the moment to write down, but I'm sure many of them aren't the most important things I'm learning in this season. Some lessons take some long-term digestion or need to marinate in our spirits before we can consciously process them in words. 

1) How the movie Elf was made. This knowledge was courtesy of Holiday Movies That Made Us on Netflix. It's so fascinating all of the collaborative effort that goes into movies and how they evolve along the way. In this movie, Jon Favreau still wasn't seen as the directing legend that he is today thanks to movies like the Lion King remake or The Mandalorian. In fact, most everyone involved in this movie were nobodies at the time. Yet, they set out to make a new holiday classic, and I think they succeeded. Will Ferrell ad-libbed many of the street scenes in New York. They used forced perspective for the North Pole scenes. The stop animation was all filmed in 27 hours because of a tough deadline. Perhaps the most heart-warming revelation was that at the heart of this film, the writer wanted to write about a father and son relationship.


Photo by Evelyn Semenyuk

2) Charcuterie boards are great. Maybe it makes me an ultra millennial for saying this, but the truth of the matter is that my grandmother has been setting out a grazing spread as part of our holiday get-togethers for as long as I can remember. This past year, because of COVID, we weren't with my grandmother for Thanksgiving and stayed home with just my immediate family. I had always wanted to try my hand at a charcuterie board, and it seemed like the perfect time to do so. I like them because they could be a meal in themselves; because they take the pressure off of the cooking timeline for a big meal since they can serve as a precursor for hungry, waiting people; and because they make for great leftovers for holiday lounging. Mine consisted of a variety of cheeses, crackers, dried fruit, fresh fruit, handy vegetables like cherry tomatoes, cured meats like salami, jam, dips, and nuts. 

3) How to use Facebook Messenger rooms. Yes, we are nearly a year into the pandemic, and it seems like this information would have been necessary before winter. But given the prevalence of Zoom, it just wasn't needed until we needed to hold a virtual meeting for people who were much more likely to have Facebook Messenger than to have Zoom downloaded. Zoom still has a lot of preferable features, but this option worked well for our meeting.


Photo by Markus Spiske

4) Simon as in Simon Peter in the Bible does not mean "reed." My whole life, though I couldn't pinpoint for you exactly from whom or how many times, I had heard that Simon means "reed." It was always presented to me in a neat packaged lesson of Peter started out as someone breakable and fragile like a reed and then Jesus changes his name to Peter which means "stone." Recently, as I was preparing a lesson for a conference, I did a bunch of research into this and found zero etymological evidence that Simon means "reed." And, all of the articles I read indicating such did not cite any sources that would back that claim up. So, if you're out there and you have a source I should know about, let me know because, for now, my childhood understanding has been revised to what I found presently which is that Simon means "hearing," "one who hears," or maybe even "one with a flat nose." It's good to question and research the things we've always been taught. We never know when we might be surprised by new information.

5) "Grace will take you places hustling can't." -- Liz Gilbert, from Brene Brown's Rising Strong

6) How much being from Appalachia has affected who I am. I recently was challenged in a class to think about what someone would want to know if they were counseling someone from Appalachia. Let's be clear that there are many different areas and subcultures to Appalachia because it's a large region, so it would be uninformed for me to try to speak for the whole area. But, it was so interesting to research the Appalachian identity as if I were an outsider to understand what traits run common among us that I have just taken as part of who I am. In reading some articles about personality traits, psychological characteristics, common values, and cultural tendencies, I saw a lot of myself that I think I had assumed came just from my upbringing. Obviously much of culture is transmitted generationally, but it was so interesting to be able to identify specific traits or values and understand that outsiders have observed this as a theme throughout Appalachia. I think if you get the chance, it's an interesting exercise to research what cultural themes have been identified in your region or within the cultures you identify with. Perhaps, the outside perspective will be completely wrong, but even that is useful information to understand how someone outside of the culture may interpret things from the outside looking in.


Photo by Wonjae Lee

7) Dill belongs in bean soup and pretty much anything else you want to put it in. It's one of my very favorite herbs, yet it's so rare to see it in grocery stores here. I know, I know. I need my own plant...I'll get to it, Mom!

8) Enneagram 6's biggest fear is lack of support. I learned this last month when my friend, Lindsey, was teaching a conference session on various themes including the fears common for each Enneagram number. I identify as an Enneagram 6 and have read lots of helpful information about what tends to motivate me or how I tend to think or operate. But, I don't remember ever reading this particular phrase, but it struck home so completely and has become a helpful reminder. For many years growing up, my means of dealing with this fear was to be the giving. If I could be the one giving and giving and giving even beyond what was healthy, I wouldn't have to feel or recognize the lack of support I was experiencing in a situation or the lack of mutuality in a friendship. Since then, I have learned so many great lessons about boundaries and asking for what I need, but this fear still creeps up in so many life decisions and questions. I think I'm still learning what to do with it when it does. 


Photo by Kristina Flour

9) "Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on the sick or the well." -- Florence Nightingale 
Though I'm sure my extroverted husband who watches TV while listening to a song on YouTube while watching a video on Tik Tok would beg to differ, Florence knows what's up. I am so highly sensitive to so many things in my environment, and noise is definitely one of them. Even when I was homeschooled at a young age, I would get up before everyone else in the house, when it was still dark, to do my school work because that's when it was most quiet, and I could best focus. Even if you don't feel overly sensitive toward noise, just know that the most healing gift you might be able to give to someone who is is to turn down the volume or offer silence altogether. 

10) How the honeyguide bird leads humans to honey but doesn't raise its own young. This, of course, begs the question, "How do honeyguide birds know that they can benefit from their relationship with humans looking for honey?" Learning about the honeyguide bird came about from my dad reading an article in a local newspaper and sharing it with me. If you'd like to learn more about the honeyguide bird and take some time to marvel at how weird and cool nature can be, here's an article:
https://www.audubon.org/news/meet-greater-honeyguide-bird-understands-humans 

11) The power of breathing deeply. So often I think things like meditation and focusing on breathing has gotten a bad reputation within Christian circles, and it's so unfortunate because, again, it's one of those things that a little research might reveal is actually quite scientifically helpful and also in line with God's wanting to grant us peace and restoration. As part of one of my classes, we conducted some breathing exercises as a means of helping a client de-stress, and the results were great. In this day and age, it's not often that we stop to do anything in a present state of mind. Learning to breathe deeply, especially in such a way that your stomach expands, and your chest stays still can be so helpful in disarming emotions like fear or anger that work with our fight or flight instincts. It's such a simple practice, but it's one I am being more intentional about now. 

What did you learn in the winter season? 

I want to do better about being more intentional--intentional in learning, intentional in writing down what I'm learning, and intentional in reflecting on how what I am learning applies to my daily life.