Merry Christmas! This is my first year doing a Christmas card on my own, and since I now have this public place to put my writing, I figured I’d take advantage of modern technology and make it so anyone who wants to read this can have it. (Who knows, maybe one day we’ll all be mailing QR codes on nice paper every December.)
I’m deeply grateful for the year 2021. It’s been the most difficult twelve months of my life, but a lot of good has come out of it. The positive side is often the one to be forgotten when the going gets tough, so in this letter, I’d like to reflect simply on the many gifts that this year has given me.
I’m grateful for the gift of music. Before this year, I knew that I enjoyed it. Now I know how much I need it. Nothing does as much good when times are hard. Musicians can speak to each other with a language no one else can fully understand. This year, I started taking the guitar seriously and discovered new ways of expressing myself. I met a great group of bandmates and have had so many new experiences, it’s hard to imagine myself without them.
I’m grateful for opportunities to learn. Some days I’m still blown away to wake up and have my most important job be to learn as much as possible in my field (I’m studying linguistics right now). I’m also grateful for all the beautiful things I discover the more places I look. I can attest to what Uncle Iroh once said: “It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it become rigid and stale.”
I’m grateful for good friends. No matter where I go, I never fail to find great, compassionate, and interesting people. Even people who are so different from me have become close friends once we’ve let each other in.
I’m grateful for memories that remind me of everything there is to hope for in life. The longer I live, the more hours, days, and years I convert from “might do” to “did do,” and I’ll never forget the people who made the “did do” into something more beautiful than I ever imagined in the “might do.”
I’m grateful for this beautiful world. Nature will always be unparalleled in its majesty, and I’m lucky to live under the beautiful Wasatch Mountains. The landscape has just been completely transformed by snowfall; everything is fresh and white, and the air tastes like Christmas. God’s creations have a unique power to help one regain one’s bearings amid the twists and turns of human society.
This year, I’ve discovered some great artists (Parachute is exactly my vibe), and my album of the year would have to be “The Struggle” by Tenth Avenue North. The album’s lyrics address the problem of evil from different angles–essentially, how can life be so bad if God is good, and why do evildoers often prosper while the humble suffer? The central theme is an affirmation that the struggle is not an accident, but a necessary and unavoidable part of life. I’ve felt that this year, and I know that my life has been made more beautiful because of the struggle.
So Merry Christmas everyone! I can’t wait to see what this next year has to offer.
Eric ∎