When I jumped off, I had a bucket full of thoughts...

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.  When I started doing this a month ago, the role of this blog was to fulfill a dual purpose.  First and I believe foremost, this blog is to serve as the opportunity for others, who may or may not be interested, to have an opportunity to stay in contact with me as I journey across the country to California.  I figure that since I got rid of Facebook there is no other medium by which others would be able to follow along, and I do intend to take photos and post them along with my adventures, of which I hope there are many, so why not do this.  The second purpose that I see this blog serve, is that of an opportunity for me to examine the path that has led me to this turning point in my life, which I hope will provide some insight into why it is I am pursuing this but also to hash out something that I may still need to work on in my own life.  So far so good, though I am now a month in and no one is following me, then again I haven't told anyone, so that will have to change.

When I said that you have to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it happened to me without even realizing it.  I have taken these last few months as an opportunity to rid my self of the anything that has been or might hold me back and prevent me from fully living into this new phase.  This transition is huge for me, monumental, ginormous even, because this is something that I have thought about and hoped for and worked for, for so many years and to see it finally come to fruition is actually a bit mind bottling.  So I want to make sure that I am as prepared as I can be in order to learn, live, love, and laugh for the next three years as I gain the necessary tools and experiences that will become the foundation of my ministry.  My intention has been to rid myself of this baggage and for the most part it has been fairly easy.  I will be leaving my job soon, so there goes all that stress and long hours.  Sure I will miss the guys, because it was by far the best company I have ever worked for, but I know that my talents should directed elsewhere.  I am finally leaving my house and the daily routine which is nice but it is time to go out on my own and see what i can do with this opportunity, will I sink or swim???  There are so many other things that will be coming to an end and there is much that can be taken away from all of this, and its not like I am not coming back in three years, so this isn't goodbye for most just a see you later type deal.  Goodbye has always been seemed so permanent, as if you didn't know if you would never see the person again.

However I did have to say goodbye to one thing and it turned out to be the hardest thing to let go of.  I knew that I had to let go because I didn't want to head out to California with no definition as to what and how our relationship was going to work out.  I needed confirmation, proof even, that one way or the other our relationship was going somewhere or it needed to be ended.  For most people the hardest part is to first let go.  I mean it is easy to see when something needs to change, but actually taking the initiative to make the change is so much harder.  But  I was lucky.  I was fortunate in that I didn't have to be the push that made this move because she did it for me.  She gave me that window of opportunity to let go, but I had to jump off and seize this opportunity or watch this baggage riding with me out to seminary and be a distraction.  There were feelings that were deep that said don't jump, just wait it out and see what might happen, but I can't live like that anymore.  So I let go of the safety that is found in things and people that are familiar, and jumped off into the unknown.

I never got to actually say goodbye...but I think we both know that is exactly what this is.

I am the stone that the builder refused...

I deliberately took a long period of time off from getting into a groove with this new found blogging.  I need this time off to do some work on myself.  I needed this time to do some serious reflection and try to gain some perspective on how to move forward.  It is so easy with this new age of social media and the internet to be able to communicate and express one's thoughts and feelings but the inherent downside to this flow of conscious thought is over sharing.  I used to be on Facebook and  I would see it all the time.  People would post the most random things and sometimes very personal things and it is always been my fear of having something out there that might come to haunt me later.  I would hate to miss out on or opportunity or be excluded from something based on a post that was taken out of context or a picture that could be taken the wrong way.  This is the reason I took the time off.  What I was experiencing was something that rocked me to my very core.  That has happened only a few times in my life and they were not very pleasant circumstances.  I didn't want to get on here and blab away and work through my issues only to find that I offend someone or say something that I shouldn't.  Sometimes discretion is overlooked when doing things in haste.

When you lose something that has been an integral part of your life for so long it not so easy to shake it off and get back up on your feet again.  Often I find myself wandering into those places in my heart to try and resurrect those memories only to find it be bittersweet because that is all they are, just memories.  Nothing will bring back that reality, it has come and it has gone.  The danger is living only in those memories while the world around us passes by.  I found that I may have been doing just that, holding onto memories of someone who just wasn't that person anymore.  After some long nights and difficult days the veil has been lifted from my eyes.

When we are cut that deep we never fully heal.  Instead trying to go back to "the way things were" you ave to move forward and you learn to live without that light in your life.  We must constantly be moving forward and there will, and I emphasize that, there will be better days.  But when all is said in done a little part of me is lost too, there is no denying that.  What I have found to be a rock in these past few weeks is my prayer.  Instead of keeping everything all jumbled up inside I offer it up to God and I know that he will give me the strength to continue.  He will take away that pain if we let Him.  Having that regular time and conversation with God has allowed me to see things from a different lens, to see that i may have my flaws, my weaknesses, my struggles, but that this is all part of being human.  I may no longer be chosen to be apart of her life, I may be the stone that the builder has refused, but I know that God has something in store for me, somehting grand and that I will become the chief cornerstone in all my imperfect glory.

"I can resist anything but the temptation from you." - Part 2

I have taken some time since my last post deliberately as I wanted to make sure that I had some time to think about what it is exactly I wanted to say.  I firmly believe that God puts people into our lives for certain reasons.  Whether it is for a momentary chance encounter, for a lifetime, or anything in between, I believe that there is something that can be taken away from all of our encounters.  When we engage in relationships with others there is a mutual flow of support and encouragement that will uplift the other and allow us to live more fully.  Perhaps it is because of our human nature, but when there is a breakdown in a relationship with someone we have a hard time recognizing the failures of the relationship and when we must simply let go.  This has happened to me in the past and is unfolding again, and sometimes I feel lost, confused, and don't know where to turn, so I turn to God.

 I am currently immersed in a situation that has me struggling yet again with this very question, do i let her go?  A relationship that I have had is clearly coming to an end and what makes it so much more complicated is that it was an intensely close relationship that was at one point romantic and I would venture to say "best friends."  While there was no formal definition for our relationship because of the sheer distance between us, I still believed that there was something there and that something might work out.  I was setting myself up for failure and a hard fall down.  It is clear that there is still something still going on between us but it has been made clear that she has moved on and that there was never any intention on her part to make this relationship work.  Fear of the unknown prevents us from taking that first step that could lead to something wonderful or at worst a mistake.  But if we are too scared to even take that step, that leap of faith, then the opportunity passes us by and we will never know what could have been by opting for the comfort of the familiar or the easy.  She says she wants to stay connected and that maybe somewhere down the line our path may cross again, but what do I do?  What do I say? 

A part of me says that I should let go of this baggage that has and will continue to weigh me down, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  By severing all communication and leaving this in the past I will be completely free as I head west to start this new phase of my life.  I can move on from her and be ready to engage in new relationships without the burden of her resting upon my shoulders.  That would probably be the smartest thing to do for me, but the other part of me says that we have known each other for almost eight years and over the course of those years we have spoken openly and candidly and been close friends.  How could I, as her friend, abandon her know as she deals with her emotional fallout from this.  The reality is, and I'm afraid to admit this, that since she has clearly moved on with her life, that it doesn't matter whether I am there for her or not because she has someone new, but that I should move on and let go of this romantic baggage that I have been carrying for so long.  I have decided to offer all of this up to God and I have prayed that He will show me where I must go and what I must do through the people that I will be meeting along the way.

I just hope I can resist the temptation from her.

“I can resist anything but the temptation from you." - Part 1

This quotation is from Ben Harper’s song Another Lonely Day and this song is my default song when I am feeling particularly disheartened.  The next few lines that follow are, “I’d rather walk alone than chase you around, I’d rather fall myself than let you drag me on down.”  I go to this song for two reasons.  First, I like the simplicity of it and if you listen to the clip you will hear that it is just Ben singing along as he plays guitar.  When I hear the tone of his voice, especially compared to other songs of his, the sadness, the loneliness, and even despair all of which can be heard over the simple guitar riffs.  I imagine that he was writing this song alone while dealing with the emotional lows of knowing he couldn’t be with the one he loved.  For me it is a reminder of the relationships that we get into with people that last longer then they should.  We hold onto to these relationships in the hope that something will change either the person in question or the circumstances, and all will be well.  Is the comfort of what is familiar that prevents us from letting go?  Or perhaps the fear of the unknown and putting ourselves out there again to possibly be hurt again?  Whatever our reasons, these relationships hold us back and weigh us down which ultimately prevents us from moving forward into new and potentially better places in our lives.  Romantic baggage is by far the most difficult thing to shed.

           

The second reason why I go to this song when I feel low is because there is still hope.  Even in the midst of his sadness and loneliness there is one key phrase that allows a speckle of hope into the song and therefore into his life.  He says, “…further long we just may....”  To me this phrase says that even though everything seems black there is still hope that this just may work out for him and his love.  This is certainly a message that we can all take away and to know that no matter how dark it may seem around us, no matter how we may think all hope is lost, there is always hope.  I have learned this truth on several different occasions in my own past.  In those dark moments of my life I put trust in God and prayed that there was more to life than what I was experiencing in those moments of despair and loneliness.  There is always hope especially in God, but for now…it’s just another lonely day.

Is it truly always business and never personal?

I have been working for the same company now for almost six years and I am now approaching the end of my time there.  With every passing day it becomes more and more of a tangible reality.  If I were not pursuing ordained ministry as a vocation then I could definitely see myself being able to make a career with the company since it is a great place with great people, however that will not be my direction.  While most of my time with company has been great the dynamics of my location have shifted dramatically in the last few months.  The first major change that occurred was the hiring of one of my best friends, and I mean I have known this guy since elementary school.  Now before we even brought him into our operation I had to make sure that I was going to be able to handle separating our friendship from our "professional" work relationship.  So often when friends work with each other, and most certainly in an authoritative situation,  that line then becomes fuzzy and that is when chaos ensues.   I believe that  up until now I have done a good job at setting that apart and establishing good boundaries that have lasted longer than a year, but today something happened that caused me to pause and reexamine the situation for a different perspective.  I was pissed at him for the way he reacted in a specific situation and felt that he had been childish when he should have been focusing on his work responsibilities.  After caving in and allowing him to do what he "needed" to do, I put up a wall and was being a downright asshole, pardon my language.  It wasn't until on my way home that I thought about it some more and realized that I was so worked up about something so minor and I thought about whether these feelings were being transferred from something else.  I will look into this a little more in the days to come, because this really may a sign that the stress of work has finally worn me down and that this might be the right time for this adventure to begin and take me away.  More to come....

If you had a fresh start what would you do?

How often in our lives do we get an opportunity to start over?  To wipe the slate clean ad start anew?  For some people that type of change only comes about when they hit rock bottom and have no choice but to dramatically change their life or risk losing it all.  "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his soul?"  Fortunately for me I am not in this position and that this transition, or even transformation if you will, is purely coming about because of my desire to pursue what I believe God is calling me to do with the time I am given.  In two months time that transformation will begin when I leave everything that is my life, my family, and friends, my parish family, my job, absolutely everything behind to seek out what God has in store for me on the other side of the country.  I believe that in order for this to be a truly fresh start I must do a realistic look at my life, take an inventory and shed all excess baggage.  Over the next few days I will continue to examine what it is I am leaving behind.  While I know that it may be painful to let go of some of this baggage but, in the long run, it will be in my best interest to let go of everything holding me back from living into the life God has called me to live.  This way there will also be no distraction from full engagement into the new community which I will be apart of for the next three years.  This will be essential for me to thrive in a place so far removed from my life as I have known it thus far.  I am looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead, but there is also the lingering doubt that this may turn out like some of my other experiences that I have had.  More on that later.  This is a good start.

I truly see this blog as serving a dual purpose.  On the one hand, it will serve as an opportunity for others to follow my experiences as I travel across the country to seminary in California.  But it will also serve as an opportunity for me to reflect on where I am in my walk with God as I prepare to embark on this adventure, one which I will lead me through the rest of my life.

The decision has been made...head west young man!

In three months time I will be in Berkeley, California ready to begin seminary at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.  Over the next three months I will share with the world my thoughts and feelings which will then culminate in a road trip across the country from Waltham, MA to Berkeley.  The road trip will be epic as it will mark the beginning of a new life, an opportunity to start anew.  Stay tuned, I will be in touch.