The Decision: What and When

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 questions, wrestling with the same issues, thinking the same thoughts. I have a decision to make. Yes, transitions are hard.

I've been back for a month, reading, thinking, praying constantly. And doing some visiting too. A couple weeks ago, I revisited my early childhood home, and went out to the cabin on Cass Lake's north shore to photograph the lake. I saw colors of the ocean reflected in the fall clouds dancing on the lake's surface.

Colors not exactly like the ocean yet oddly reminiscent. The smell of water is the same. The feel on your face of waterborne wind is the same. The horizon is different.

I liked  the view from the dock better.

Better yet was the view from the Norway Beach campground where I used to camp alone as a teenager, fishing for my dinner from my heavy Corecraft canoe (so heavy! all I could do to tie it to the roof of my beat up station wagon alone!) and dreaming about what I wanted to do with my life. The smell of pine trees takes me back to childhood. I lived in Cass Lake from grades 1-5, and then again in 10th and 12th grade. I graduated from there having lived alone for a year due to a transition stemming from my father's Air Force career. In Cass Lake, I was slated for the valedictorian slot, whereas elsewhere... they had no way of knowing how I would do.  My scholarship tended to be hit and miss. Transitions were hard for me even back then. So, they left me behind.

Now, back in my Davenport apartment I am contemplating another transition. I keep asking myself, "Is that wise?" I score high in adaptability, but I don't think adaptability is native to my nature. It's more of a nurture thing, something I was trained to do as a military child. It was furthered in my 40 year marriage to a military man who relished transition and volunteered for as many deployments as he could. I did not, and still don't, relish transition or insecurity. But, I know how to do it.

I learned to emotionally detach when facing transition. I did it with my husband in the weeks prior to his deployments. We did not argue much as a rule unless he was scheduled for deployment. We both recognized the arguments as pre-deployment jitters, tension we learned to joke about, vowing between us not to take anything we said to each other as gospel truth in a moment of heat. It was a painful, yet unavoidable part of deployment for us, like vaccinations. The same dynamic happened when he returned from deployment. We would have a rough month. But then it would be clear sailing until the next round.

I think the same thing is happening to me here in Davenport. How much of my emotional and physical upheaval since returning from Saipan this month has been due to the same phenomenon? Do I feel a transition coming and have begun to detach? Probably. As a result, I have been praying for the people I have interacted with since my return, asking God to heal any hurts I may have inflicted in our talks. I have apologized to them too. I have also asked God to heal me of the transitional anxiety that leads me to say things I don't really mean, especially to those closest to me, during times of transition.

Having said that, even knowing transition is hard, I am inclined to return to Saipan. I have one year of college left and I am working out the details of what it would take to do my senior year there instead of here.

Can I say definitively that God is telling me to do this? I can't. There's been no skywriting, no lightning bolts, no scripture coming to life to tell me, "Thus saith the Lord," yet I do not feel a check in my spirit when I think about doing this. Also, the details that need to come together to make it possible are working out in unexpected and wonderful ways. Absent a check in my spirit, and poised before an open door, it may simply be a matter of choosing whether or not I want to walk through the door. Whether I want to pick up the rope and climb into the unknown. Or do I want to give in to the gray twilight of good knitting needles and a soft rocking chair? Be done with scary ropes and transitions forever. On days when I am overwhelmed, the thought beckons.

Briefly.

I'm not ready to knit.

My plan is to move to Saipan during Christmas week (14 weeks from now) which is a session break in my college coursework. I will outline my reason for moving on my own without an actual mission assignment in PART TWO of this post, which will, hopefully, be ready to read tomorrow. It has to do with racism, white privilege and a residual, colonial mindset I see evidenced here in the mainland, but which was not visible to me until I went to Saipan this summer. Reading mainland news from my chair in Saipan, I saw things about myself and our North American culture that to me need further development. That's why I want to go back. It will be a year of learning for me. A year that might make me a better pastor. A year to define words such as mission, evangelism, community, and equality. I find the air seems clearer there for thinking, praying, watching, learning. Regarding race relations, there is much to think, pray, watch, and learn about, wouldn't you say?

Until tomorrow,
Amy