That’s how all my blog entries for 2011 look in a wordle.
I also chose a word for 2011 – “open-hearted”. I knew that the risk of living in a community where people come and go so often that I would guard myself against forming attachments and friendships. Whether it was the intention signalled by the word, or the outcome of living in a generous and loving community, I have definitely arrived at the beginning of 2012 affected by the friendships and relationships I have experienced in the year past.
As a childless household, we are especially grateful for the children in our lives: nieces and nephews, godchildren, friends and congregation members. Our godson, Amos, was good medicine during my sickness with his laughter and insistence on being read “Maisy goes to Hospital” again and again and again. There are children in the congregation who every week tell me about some thing that happened or some delicious thing they ate or some extraordinary thing they saw. I love experiencing Beijing through their eyes and ears.
Of the words I wrote on my Blog last year, Beijing tops the list at 47 mentions. But if you add up friends, friend and friendship Beijing gets tipped from the top of the poll. Beijing is definitely the place that shaped my life last year, but I’m going to vote “friends” the word of 2011. As William James once wrote, “Wherever you are, it’s your friends who make your world”.
