Moving Forward

After promising a sequel to yesterday's post , I'm not so sure I can put it into words. After three false starts, my brain stalled on the starting line. I took a break a bit ago to recover, walked down to the mailbox, thought, prayed, and breathed deeply. There are storms somewhere close by. I can smell them. I am back now and ready to try again. Perhaps I picked up the story in my first three drafts too late in the timeline.  Maybe I need start the account further back, way back, to the year I was left alone in Cass Lake. How did my parents know at the end of 11th grade that I would graduate valedictorian if I stayed behind in Cass Lake during 12th grade when the rest of the family moved to an air base in Michigan? I remember hearing rumors among my classmates when the class standings were published that spring suggesting that my classes had been weighted heavier than my competitors to make it possible for me to be valedictorian. I remember thinking it was possible. I had be...

Transitions are hard. It was hard last fall to make the decision to apply for the Saipan position this summer. It was hard to think through the implications of what it would mean to go to EXPLORE and be thereafter labeled as a Nazarene missionary when I was at the same time processing what it meant to be in training to become a Nazarene pastor. It was hard to process the meaning of commitment to family, to church, to friends, to denomination, to nation, to God, to self. It was hard to process the reality of being old yet not old, alone yet not alone, confident yet not confident that I have what it takes to climb into the unknown. Wouldn't it be easier on everybody to just let go of the rope and drift gently into the gray twilight of life?  Do the expected thing? Be the expected person? Last fall, I refused to be sucked into the night. I picked up the rope and climbed, ending up in Saipan for the summer. Today, I am back again where I was this time last fall asking the same questi...