I scrawled a horizontal line through the middle of my journal, attempting to better understand the past 12 months. I noted positive experiences with an arrow and description above the midline, challenging experiences went below. The page resembled a sine wave, cresting with fun trips and celebrations and falling with difficult and unexpected news. I’d hoped the diagram might map the past year and surface themes across time and experiences. 

Maybe it was black ink on a white page, or my lifeless straight lines pulled from an architect's blueprint. Either way, my diagram was stale. 2022 remained the undigested heap it was prior to my starting. Frustrated and looking for help, I began combing through our pictures from the past year. The range and vibrancy of color was a welcome change from my drab journal. Memories that had rested quietly, now stirred with a half-grin. The curiosity I’d hoped to spark in my diagram was now kindled in the faces before me:

With a wooden sword in his left hand and his right fist cocked back, my son and his fellow warrior glared through squinted eyes and faces marked by three shades of jagged war paint. 

Her eyes bulged with joyous anticipation, but she did not smile. Seconds later she would devour a variation of a smore that replaced chocolate with a Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie. 

She wore white Chuck Taylors and a grin with one front tooth. Her arm cradled her mare’s face while July clouds brewed gray in the distance.  

The slanting sun and pulsing river settled something on her face. Something akin to contentment? Or was it remembering?

There were other, harder faces too. Like the old woman my wife took care of, who had a terrible poker face while playing cribbage, who died earlier this Spring. Or the friend whose eyes bounced in January, but now sit tired and dark. 

My approach to the past year was shifted by these faces. I was given the opportunity to read them, and patiently search for detail. Nuance was not a hindrance, but the sought after goal. Each face asked me to wonder. What did I read in their expression? What could I piece together? What didn’t they show? Like curtained windows they asked to be looked in and through. Instead of attempting to understand my year with a timeline, these faces gave the invitation to feel - maybe for the first time - parts of this past year. 

For some, that could be good news. And for others, it rivals a referral to an oral surgeon. Feel things again? Why expend the energy and to what end? At Restoration Project we ask men to reflect beyond the timeline diagram of their life. We believe the activity is not most important, but the significance within that experience. We follow the wisdom of the early Celtic Church who would ask travelers not what they did on their journey, but what their journey meant

What did this year mean to you?

That’s a question riddled with risk, one that requires more than analytical reflection. One way to engage that question could be to ponder the faces of 2022. What faces stop you mid-scroll through your photos? Which grins deserve celebration? What pensive looks need your wonder? Meaning isn’t a variable to solve for, but an undertaking to pursue. 

As you do, I’ll ask another question: What has God’s face been towards you this year? 
Is it one of unwavering focus and attention to you and the slightest of details?
Is it one of indifference and distraction? 
Is it one stained with approval and smeared with delight?
Is it one of turning towards you and shining to you amidst whatever goodness or suffering you have walked? 

As you reflect on 2022, may you know God’s blessing. Blessing not as provision or removal of pain, but blessing as defined by God in Numbers 6 - a turning and shining of His face toward you.

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Jesse French, Restoration Project Executive Director