Ten Weeks to Go

Maybe this is a bit more introspective than most of the posts I write here.  I suppose it is partially because I have had very little time to devote to anything significant, other than school and vain attempts at sleeping well.  It’s been nearly a month since I’ve last written anything, though I’ve had some half-hearted attempts.  There are probably a great many things I could write about at the moment.  Chick-fil-a’s reversal on donations to anti-homosexual causes.  We just passed the fifteenth anniversary of Rich Mullins’ tragic death, (which was September 19^th).  Or perhaps the fragment of a 4^th century papyrus that some say suggests that Jesus had a wife.   All of these are reasonable topics that we should all be aware of and deserve a bit of attention.  But instead, I’m going to, more or less, vent about life, the universe, and everything, and throw out some of my own questions and doubts that I’ve been experiencing.  You may have similar troubles floating around in your life, and that’s OK.  If nothing else, I’m open to talking with anyone, if you need it; shoot me a line. 

It’s been a bumpy year.  Semi-Theologian has been online for one year.  I just turned 34.  Tomorrow is my 7^th year working as a security guard.  I’m 10 weeks away from finishing classes, which is about 12 years late.  Not to mention weight, of which figures are, ahem, unavailable at the moment.  Maybe all of these things are adding up to a pre-mid-life crisis, (and I’m hoping on hanging onto the “pre” as long as mathematically possible, thank you very much.)  Really, what I’m getting at, what has been nagging my consciousness, is probably the same thing that bothers each of us at one point or another: why am I here?

Maybe that’s a bit melodramatic.  Fine, I’ll accept the guilt.  But throughout life, you go back and forth between interests and hobbies, passions and purposes, and you try to extract bits and pieces of all of these things that make you, well, you.  Some people get it right away, such as those who, through their passion and interests, chose a career path very early on, stuck with it, and are either extremely successful, or are simply happy with what it is they do every day when they wake up.  It’s these people who seemingly have found a purpose to program Mr. Coffee to wake them up in the morning, and I admire them. 

A couple of times this past year, I thought I had things figured out only to find out that, well, that isn’t going to work out so well.  The biggest of which was the idea of joining the military as a Chaplain.  While I believe I have the personality necessary to minister to people in a pluralistic environment, such as the military, the requirements set by the endorsing agent for the Christian Churches/Church of Christ go above and beyond Department of Defense requirements for education.  Unfortunately, this makes doing so pretty much impossible, unless I am able to drop everything and move to and attend a graduate school connected with the Restoration Movement.  Unsurprisingly, I am not able to do so.  Realizing this, and exhausting all other possibilities of receiving an ecclesiastical endorsement from another organization, I was let down pretty hard.

I’ve been trying to come out of my funk for a while, and I know I need to.  I need to look at life, and my future, less like Solomon and more like Bilbo, whose adventures took him to places he never expected.  Maybe graduating is the nudge out of the door that I really need, and we’ll see where that road leads.  Hopefully it will lead to a meaningful and effective ministry.  And hopefully that road will go ever on and on for many years to come.