Tag: faith

Small moments, great reads, and faith on the journey.

SUMMER VACATION!!!!

Itinerary
Georgia Fun

• Kids on swim team
• A few days exploring Savannah, GA

Up North

• Road trip to northern WI
• 6 weeks in the Northwoods
• Road trip home from northern WI

Home to Georgia

• Kids returned to school, I worked in Office of Student Life and Formation at Columbia Seminary

Travel Plans
What I thought would happen:

• We’d visit Iowa
• I wouldn’t want to go back to GA
• I wouldn’t think about school
• I’d prepare to worship at the Episcopal Church in Atlanta where I worshipped this spring and loved

Travel Plans Revised
What actually happened:

• Wisconsin or bust
• I was ready to head home from WI about a week before our departure.
• I spent an inordinate amount of time making course schedule considerations and mapping out what life could look like this semester
• I applied for and accepted a position as a Sunday School teacher at a Presbyterian Church in Atlanta

Homesick Already?
As often as I long for the life I left behind in Iowa, and the way the sunrise warmed the front porch of the house I loved, or how the grassy, humid fragrance rolled from nearby fields along my suburban street, my longing is fleeting. Surprisingly I don’t miss Iowa like I thought I would. What made Iowa home for me was family. Since my family spends the summer in Wisconsin, to Wisconsin we went.

I startled awake one late July morning in Wisconsin with a severe bout of homesickness. Not for Iowa, but for Georgia. Were it not for my kids’ last art and nature classes the following week I would have packed up and headed south then. I wrestled and played with this unexpected feeling. This longing for a place that is still so new confounded me. What was different?

Last summer the unknown of starting seminary loomed and the anxiety of moving into a new home mounted. Last summer was a prelude to new things—a life in my imagination, not reality.

This summer was different. I knew where I was headed. I knew the neighbors that would greet me, which steps would creak as I hauled our luggage inside, which flowers I’d cut first and put in a vase. I knew the rigor that awaited at seminary, but this time also knew the names of people I can count on.

I was ready to return home.

Saying Goodbye
Seminary is a process of reshaping who you were and molding it into who you are called to be. This process produces excess clay. Letting go of even little pieces can be hard. I let go of several things this summer.

Ever since my oldest child was in the NICU and we stayed at Ronald McDonald House, I’ve been saving pop tabs. Diligently washing out cans, spinning the tabs until they break free, adding them to the jar for Ronald McDonald House Charities who gets money for each one. That’s right, almost twelve years later I still drop them into a jar. The same jar. The same one jar. Almost twelve years later. But not anymore.

Same thing goes for Box Tops. No more cutting out stiff cardboard rectangles on the back of cereal boxes. No having to remember to trim them and turn them into my kids’ school only during the exact right two-week window each year.

I’m letting go, knowing I will give back, and okay that it might look different than jars of metal and baggies of cardboard.

Sometimes letting go means big things. Witnessing a dear friend’s ordination at the end of summer, trusting that God holds this person on the new journey ahead. Being aware of the emptiness on campus without the presence of last year’s seniors you didn’t realize you looked up to so much. Feeling reluctant to let the new students’ energy and enthusiasm soothe the void.

Best Reads for the Journey:
How to Raise Monarch Butterflies: A Step-by-Step Guide for Kids (How It Works) by Carol Pasternak
Get this for the kids (and adults) in your life.

Urban Jungle: Living and Styling with Plants
The book itself is a piece of art. But not pretentious. Practical with unusual flavor influenced by its non-American contributors.

Essence Magazine
Expands my cultural lens and framework.

The Crisis Magazine
Deep, thorough coverage of racial and justice issues that matter, written from a non-white perspective. Should be required reading for whites.

anything by Lianne Moriarty
My new favorite author! Complex plots, fascinating characterizations.

Zen Garden by David Holzer
A beautiful little book. I now have a vision for my backyard.

Any and all interior design mags
Summer is when I get my creative fix.

Best Moment on the Journey—The Eclipse:
Normally it’s the Perseid Meteor Shower on my mind in August. Not this year. Still, I was not prepared for the eclipse. I was not prepared that it would coincide with a soular eclipse. Read about it here.

Souvenirs:
Normally my souvenirs are words. Quotes that spoke to me. But summer is different. It is blissful and beautiful in its own unique way. So instead I offer a list of gratitude for all the blissful and beautiful people, places, and experiences this summer. I am thankful for:

• Last day of school Nerf gun battle with our first friends in GA—now an annual tradition
• Coach Beth and the TigerSharks swim team
• Swimming in the neighborhood pool and in the lake Up North
• Container ships, a war reenactment, awesome hotel, and bus transporation in Savannah
• A belated birthday party for all 3 kids at the pool. This may become a tradition.
• Good neighbors
• Black-eyed Susans from good neighbors that bloom like there is no tomorrow
• Houseguests that remind us of just starting out and make us laugh
• Gardening in containers
• Lake Superior
• Emory Presbyterian Church
• Long walks and lake play with Murphy and Luna
• My husband getting out the sailboat
• Sailing for the first time in a decade+
• Successfully tacking into a strong wind
• The dream of “my” little cabin down the way
• Needing to (getting to) wear stocking caps in July
• Art teachers like Peggy Grinvalsky
• Uncle Bruce’s cabin and homestead  (and Uncle Bruce himself)
• Dixie’s Coffee House in Manitowish Waters
• Introducing my oldest daughter to Dixie’s Coffee House
• Camping out with my kids
• Boating with my best friend
• Working with a dynamic, diverse group of individuals in the Office of Student Life and Formation
• New friends from this work
• Ordinations
• Participation in discussions and presence at talks about racial justice and reconcilation
• Deep connection with a friend in ministry
• Pastors and accountability partners
• My mom
• This blog and finally seeing how I might merge my pastoral and writer selves

Destination UnKnown
Most of time I find following call to be a wrestling match, the ultimate push and pull with God in trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do instead of what I think I want to do. But sometimes… sometimes you just know. Sometimes God’s voice speaks clear as day when you least expect it.

I’ve struggled with my call and denominational identity way more than I’d like to admit in seminary. It wasn’t until this spring when I starting living into my identity as a child of God first, that the stress of where I belong dissipated. This release of pressure created an opening for God to speak. It came in the form of a job description for a position I wasn’t looking for. Sunday School Teacher. At a Presbyterian church. The description of what they were looking for had enough whimsy to it that I knew my out-of-box, creative approach might actually be welcomed.

After I’d already committed a year of Sunday mornings to this church and the children, because I just knew it was right, I attended for the first time. And I knew again. This small, quirky church in Atlanta with a gracious heart in the midst of big transitions, is exactly where I am supposed to be.

There is still mystery. Is this God’s declaration of my ultimate denominational identity? Will this be my family’s church home for the duration of my seminary career? I don’t know. But I’m sure that God spoke, I listened, and I’m in exactly the right spot…for now.

Please prepare for landing:

“Everyone had to grow into themselves before they could offer anything.” –Susan Branch in Martha’s Vineyard: Isle of Dreams

I still have a lot of growing to do. But, as summer came to an end, I released my adolescent-like angst that erodes my trust in the God who leads me on a mysterious journey. I trust I’m going in the right direction, even when the landing is bumpy.