It’s the most wonderful time of the year, the time for making lists. I love lists. They make me happy, calm me down, and push me forward into the future – especially lists of happy things and good times.
One way to reinforce your grateful heart is to keep track of how you spent it. What did you watch or read or cook or listen to or consume this year? Look back over 12 months and ask: “What did I love this year? What do I recommend?”
Writer and artist, Austin Kleon, taught me to create a list of things that made my year; I wrote my first list in 2014, so this is my 10th edition. You may notice some repeats from my previous lists. That’s on purpose. I love the good things that stick year after year, and I want to call them out.
When we look back over our life, and over the previous year, we tend to remember the bad over the good.
Why is that?
Two reasons: Most good things stretch out over long periods of time, but bad things happen all at once, so the bad things stick in our memory while the good things fade to the back. Also, we have an Enemy who tries to rob us of joy and love and covers over our best memories with the debris of daily life.
Therefore, we must intentionally remind ourselves of the good things, the grace-filled things, the influential things, and the things that make us human. Living with gratitude is the secret to a meaningful life, and this exercise of listing people, events, and things that made the year better is a powerful move toward having a habitually thankful heart.
I encourage you to put together your own list and try not to stop until you can identify at least 100 things. A list of the best things you watched, the best things you ate, the best advice you received, the best apps you discovered, the best lines you heard in a movie, the best books you read that’s been sitting on your shelf for more than a decade, the best changes you made to your evening routine.
It won’t be easy. You may have to find help to remember the best, so dig out your journals, flip through the photos on your phone, comb through your calendars, review your reading lists and music purchases, and ask those who are close to you. It can be a lot of work, but trust me, it’s worth the effort.
And when you do, I hope you share. I’d love to see your list. A big part of imbedding gratitude in your life is making it known.
100 Things That Made 2023
(By the way, this list has been randomly sorted. Trying to rank items by importance is paralyzing.)
1. Our newly remodeled showers (thank you, Cyndi). We went from dark brown to bright white.
2. Quote: “I loved music before anyone was listening.” – Amy Grant.
3. Attending the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans with church friends. We were both fascinated at the way they handled so many people, and loved all the music.
4. Donating my 134th pint of blood (16.75 gallons). My life goal is 160 pints (20 gallons), which means I have about five years to go.
5. Quote (I heard from a defense attorney during voir dire): “You know what the ‘e’ in email stands for? Evidence.”
6. Book: Walking With Sam, by Andrew McCarthy. A father-son Camino journal.
7. Kevin Willhite with Soft Touch Chiropractic Clinic. He keeps me straight and pain-free.
8. My Uncle James and Aunt Barbara joined us for Thanksgiving leftovers and the Granbury Christmas parade.
9. Wearing my new handmade Panama hat, a Birthday present from my family. I’m sure it makes me a better writer.
10. Movie: Jesus Revolution. It took me back to the 1970s, to the music and message that awakened my teenaged heart.
11. Reading my Daily Bible.
12. Book: Long Train Runnin’, by Pat Simmons and Tom Johnston. What the people need is a way to make them smile; It ain’t so hard to do if you know how. Listen to the Music.
13. Our standing date (Cyndi and me) at Blue Sky every Friday at 1:00 pm, where we split a hamburger and tater tots. Simple, routine events like this place another drop of glue that binds us together.
14. Playing trombone with Denver and the Mile High Orchestra at Christmas. I stood on stage between two PhD musicians and jazz masters. I love the idea that, no matter my age (67), I can still get better.
15. Playing with Craig and Ross at Pete Schrenkel’s annual Christmas open house.
16. My brand new 2023 Barcelona Red Toyota Tacoma. I don’t have a practical reason for driving a pickup, but it makes me happy. The empty bed represents hope … I can help you.
17. My friend Rabon Bewley received his PhD in music education. Now we call him Dr. Jazz.
18. Base Camp Gathering in Colorado with my Noble Heart friends. There is a depth among brothers that I need.
19. Trombone Shorty (Troy Andrews) concert with Carroll and Cyndi and Byron and Angela and Katie.
20. Quote: “Every good scab has a story.” – David Hurta.
21. Cyndi’s homemade apple pie. Not only it is my favorite, knowing she makes it just for me feeds my heart.
22. Stuffing my first dollar into a Salvation Army kettle at Market Street in Midland.
23. Podcast: Norah Jones is Playing Along. (Especially Episode 27, with Questlove and Christian McBride.)
24. Solving Sudoku puzzles each morning. It’s my small effort against dementia.
25. Walking the Camino de Santiago with Cyndi, in Spain in May.
26. Book: God’s Not Done With You, by John Meador. We had some of our deepest Iron Men discussions with this book.
27. Reversible gray/burgundy pullover that Cyndi brought home from her studio’s lost-and-found collection. It has become my favorite cold-weather gear.
28. Movie: A Million Miles Away. I love astronaut stories. And engineer stories. This was both.
29. Podcast: McCartney: A Life in Lyrics
30. Giving a talk – sharing my heart – about mentoring, at Base Camp Gathering in September.
31. Dr. Vineyard, at the Carrell Clinic in Dallas, who reconstructed my left foot and ankle June 2022. Thanks to him, I’m back walking every day and hiked long distances, in Saudi Arabia last March, and Spain last May. (I recently had my final post-surgery visit, so now I’m on my own.)
32. Definition (from SpaceX after the Starship rocket exploded during flight): “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
33. Cycling with Carroll in Glen Rose, Texas, in the Paluxy Pedal.
34. Most confusing quote: “It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day.” – Vice President Kamala Harris.
35. Book: A Voyage for Madmen, by Peter Nichols
36. I got my first “Buen Camino” in Midland, from someone who noticed my backpack.
37. Movie: Oppenheimer (They talked about physics for over two hours, and it seemed like 30 minutes.)
38. Quote: “Don’t define your life by achieving your goals. Define your life by living your values.” – Adam Grant.
39. Traveling down the highway listening to audio books with Cyndi. We may go hours without talking to each other, yet it feels like we’re on a date.
40. Mailing birthday cards. My list got longer this year with the addition of our new Sunday School class.
41. Journey Group with Todd and Peit Peit, using Zoom, since they both live in Saudi Arabia. (This was my first totally virtual JG.)
42. Worshiping in the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral after finishing our pilgrimage.
43. Regular Friday evening dinners with Britt and Patti Pyeatt. Feels like family. Feels like home.
44. Podcast: Ask Dr. E
45. Finishing the year with 2,950 books on my reading list (since 1986). Send me your list; I’ll send you mine. Maybe we’ll discover new books together.
46. Dancing with Cyndi.
47. Observing the annular solar eclipse in October.
48. Quote (from movie A Million Miles Away): “Tenacity is a superpower.”
49. Visiting Mt. Sinai, Moses’ Well, the Split Rock, and other archeological sites in western Saudi Arabia.
50. A working weekend in Granbury with Carroll and Byron and Angela and Katie. We cut up a lot of wood that day.
51. Book: The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Everest, by Conrad Ankor
52. The post-ride protein reload at Black’s Barbeque in Lockhart with Carroll’s family, following the Ride to End Alzheimer’s.
53. Driving Todd’s Jeep up and down giant sand dunes in Saudi Arabia.
54. Whataburger Yeti cup.
55. Taking cold plunges at Cyndi’s yoga studio. No one could be more surprised than me how refreshingly fun this was.
56. A surprise lunch with Jerry Comfort at McAlister’s in Big Spring.
57. Mavis Staples in concert. “Just another soldier in the army of love.”
58. Quote (from Wild Ideas podcast): “You have to allow yourself downtime. You can’t be all epic all the time.” – Emily Pennington.
59. Cyndi made a scrub shirt for Rabon to celebrate his new doctorate.
60. Yellow highlighters. I buy them by the box and use them all the time.
61. Accompanying Cyndi to Maine in August for her fascia workshop.
62. Quote: “More than raw intelligence, I look for people who consistently push past pretty good.” – Malcomb Gladwell.
63. Soft-Cover, black, squared Moleskine Journals.
64. Cycling with Carroll in Wimberley in the Ride to End Alzheimer’s.
65. Playing in the FBC orchestra and Midland College Jazz Band with Cyndi. (One of my favorite things about life is that Cyndi and I have played music together since 1973.)
66. When the woman in the Pilgrim Office in Santiago, Spain, finished printing my Compostella, a certificate of completion of the Camino de Santiago, she handed it to me and said, simply, “Congratulations, Berry.” I teared up when I took it. I didn’t expect it to be so emotional.
67. Attending the 100th anniversary of First Baptist Church Ackerly, where my grandfather, Roy Haynes, pastored from 1950 to 1956. I heard at least a dozen stories from people who walked all the way across the room to tell me they were baptized by Bro. Haynes.
68. Our Camino tour guide, Miguel, told us that tying a seashell to our backpacks transformed us from tourists to pilgrims. I haven’t stopped pondering that statement, yet.
69. Quote: “Firefighters run toward fires; Soldiers run toward combat; Christians should run toward serving.” – BDS.
70. Cooking on my new Pit Boss pellet grill. So far, pork chops have been my best efforts. (I’m open to (even soliciting) advice and recommendations.)
71. Wrangler Relaxed-Fit jeans. Skinny jeans don’t work for me.
72. Visiting Saudi Arabia in March, where we spoke about marriage to a dozen small groups and one banquet.
73. Regular lunches with my pastor, Dr. Darin Wood.
74. Quote: “When I was younger, I thought the way you make the biggest impact on the world is you go to the most places you can and speak to the most people you can speak to. At forty I had a wakeup moment where I realized that you make the greatest impact by staying in the same place for the longest amount of time to see the reproductive power of the gospel at work in the generational cycles that come.” – Louie Giglio
75. Playing Christmas jazz with Rabon at the Midland Art Crawl in Cyndi’s yoga studio.
76. Book: My Knotted-Up Life, by Beth Moore
77. Book: Confronting Christianity, by Rebecca McLaughlin
78. Cyndi Simpson in yoga pants.
79. Book: Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys, by Michael Collins
80. Goal: “Be a learner vs. a knower.”
81. Byron’s Duck Ruloud for Thanksgiving Dinner.
82. Teaching in the Ezekiel Class. They welcomed us as their new teacher, and we’ve enjoyed every minute. About two weeks in, I told Cyndi, “This feels like home to me. It’s a reminder what I’m supposed to be doing.”
83. Spending the night onboard Jeff and Robin Darr’s sailboat. Great friends and a delightful evening.
84. Not watching 24-hour TV news.
85. Walking around our neighborhood park in the mornings with Cyndi.
86. Quote: “I find it very hard to be unhappy on a bicycle.” – Austin Kleon
87. Bill Britt with Integrity Massage – he keeps me moving. (A bonus: Bill was baptized in 2023!)
88. Tuesday morning gentle yoga class.
89. Book: The Oregon Trail, by Rinker Buck (a Christmas gift from my daughter-in-law).
90. Journey Group with Charlton and Ryan with Google Meet, spanning three time zones. (This is my second completely virtual JG.)
91. Watching Cyndi teach dance lessons at a marriage enrichment exercise at the Osterlunds.
92. Quote: “Remember, today’s peacock is tomorrow’s feather duster.” – Parker Palmer.
93. Sharing cartoons on my Facebook page.
94. 32nd annual Midland Storytelling Festival. We’ve attended all 32. And now, Cyndi and I are serving on the board.
95. Byron and Angela’s Cubano Sandwiches made with freshly cooked bread, a Thanksgiving holiday treat. This was their best, yet.
96. Book: Number One is Walking, by Steve Martin
97. Book: Being Disciples, by Rowan Williams
98. Attending the storytelling workshop taught by Sue Roseberry.
99. Book: Finding Elevation, by Lisa Thompson
100. Book: Confronting Jesus, by Rebecca McLaughlin
“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32
* * * * * * *
I need your help. The primary reason people read these articles is because someone like you shared with a friend, so please share this with someone you think will appreciate it. And encourage them to subscribe. Thanks!
A Whole New World
Leave a Reply