Thoughts along the journey...

The eye of the world_
Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/52988603@N00/.

I am in the midst of pastoral consultations this week---I had one-on-ones today with five of the pastors in my district. I really love this experience---the pastors and I talk about their current places of ministry, and I hear what their hopes are for the coming year in terms of appointment. I had some exquisitely beautiful moments today, which I cannot share on a blog because, well, even I have my boundaries around some things, but I'll just say at least a couple of times, God's presence was so near, that it was nearly palpable. In one of the interviews, I surprised myself by telling the pastor that I sensed God so very near at that exact moment. These times with the pastors are holy ones for me. Together we come before God, the pastor opening his/her life to me and to the presence of the living God, being truthful, being human, seeking guidance, giving thanks. These "interviews," as much as I love them, do take quite a bit out of me and after getting home this evening, I found myself playing a game on my new 8525 and watching the Texas-Oklahoma State game at the same time, sort of vegging out.

My life seems to be turning, turning, hopefully coming 'round right these days...it is no coincidence as I am getting my bearings more and more, that I remember my mother who at 52, learned to drive and started college. I am fifty two; I already know how to drive, thanks to my mother and father, and I have enough higher education college to last the rest of my life. Part of the turning for me is that I am turning away from some things this year (I did not decorate for Christmas except for my Cardinal tree; I can't seem to stand the sight of a crochet hook and yarn in the same basket) and have turned back to others, counted cross stitch for one, and, here I tell something not many people know, reading fantasy novels for another. Over the past twenty years or so, occasionally I would try to get back in to reading fantasy, but never got past the 30 or 40th page. About a month ago, I picked up a book written in 1990 The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan and am really enjoying it...good thing too, because I think there are several books in this series, all over 500 pages. I began reading fantasy-- The Hobbit in high school, and then Ursale LeGuin and then in my first appointment after seminary I went whole hog--I really think I was trying to escape loneliness. Now, I think I read because I am delighted in the imagination of a good writer, who chose to create an alternative land where good continues to confront horrible evils, and although I have not read to the end, my hunch is the good guy, after much transformation and torment, does indeed win. I also think I somehow want to affirm that life is a complicated thing, indeed, as is love, as is faith at times, but it does eventually come down to whether you choose one path or another, whether you choose to go forward with the challenges before you, or retreat, whether you honor the call and choose the journey, or whether you choose to stay where you are, safe, and stunted.

I am glad the pastors in my district's churches are all on the journey of ministry, but all following a bit different path, all having adventures that call for love and faith and courage. What a thing this life, this vocation is...and by turning, turning, toward the Light, toward the call, toward the journey, we will, perhaps sometime in the far distant future or perhaps sometime very, very soon, come round right.