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What a powerful end to 2015!

At the end of most normal years, if there is such a thing, i imagine tbV and i would have tried to find a few days off to just chill and recover from what has been a busy, crazy, challenging, great and difficult year. But this year we decided to finish strong. And that has made all the difference.

We intentionally looked to create three days of inviting some key people in our lives, and some we didn’t know yet, to explore with us what it means to live simply, to scratch beneath the surface of some of the race conversations we have been having and finally to look backwards to 2015 and then forwards into 2016.

But even within the intentionality of the last few days, there were moments of just seizing moments, pausing, listening, taking time to formulate a thought or ask a questions and as we head into 2016 i want to suggest that this is a great aim for each of us to have this year – be on the lookout – or be alert and ready to embrace them as and when they appear – for moments worthy of pause, reflection, spoken word, invited silence, communal appreciation and more.

Some examples for me from these last few weeks include:

Valbandw

# Sitting with tbV next to a stream in the forest and compiling a list of people who stood out for us as being significant to us in 2015.

# A conversation with three of us in a car after a late night [actually early morning] gathering and conversation taking time to clarify and add to and share more stories and seek to understand context.

# Lighting a candle that smells of candy floss/cotton candy just after New Year’s midnight and spending a minute or two inviting the 10 people around the table to share one [to three] thing they hope for [as in an active hope of what might actually be or what they can work towards and not “i hope to drink unicorn tears”] in 2016 as a way of inviting each person to formulate and speak out a hope for the new year.

# A 10 minute walk around Manenberg observing and listening and asking God what He is doing in that area and what does He want me to notice.

# An outstretched arm arrival waiting-for-the-hug tradition with two of my nieces that has become one of my favourite moments to anticipate and experience.

Thanksgiving Tree

# A  Christmas tree made up of individual moments of Thanksgiving captured on a small piece of cardboard daily and then added to create the tree.

# Sitting together outside waiting for the coals to catch and burn so that we can share a meal together.

# Being intentional around the family Christmas lunch table with questions on paper that stimulate deep and fun and silly and informative conversation way above that which we normally experience.

# Kidnapping the granny from her room in the senior’s home and taking her out for tea and cake down the road.

# Putting a small sub R10 gift and a sentence of prophetic hope for the new year on the table at Christmas.

# Shared breaking of bread and sipping of wine at a nearby Anglican church at midnight before Christmas.

# Returning to the scratched moss memory of my best buddy and rebuilding a memorial alter of remembrance in the forest.

i’m sure there are more!

BUT each of those could have been skipped or missed or rushed on by, if there was not the intention to Carpe the Momentum. Which is probably not the correct latin for that sentence, but it does have the added wordplay of the word ‘momentum’ which talks of things continuing at the same pace.

We need to learn the habit of interrupting the pace. Finding the moments, or recognising them as they appear or creating the space beforehand so they will.

i hope to live more intentionally like this in 2016. Will you? 

[i would LOVE to hear one or two of the moments you took to Carpe the Momentum as 2015 wound down, so please take a minute and jump into the comments and share – those are the only comments i am interested in hearing and publishing on this particular post.]

[The one moment i left out of here was another moment of just knowing Val is my one!]