I’ve been struggling with a topic for this blog. What am I supposed to write about? I feel like a blog about my money problems would be a bit needy. One about the craziness of this Texas winter would be too trite. I’ve thought about a series of blogs, one on each country on my route. This is a completely valid area to explore, but the truth is, I don’t really want to. Each week, I sit and stare at my computer and wonder what I should write about, and then I give up and read someone else’s story. I realized today what I was searching for: hope. I only came to this conclusion because I suddenly felt hope.
When I think back over the last month, I have certainly had fantastic experiences and lovely memories were made. It cannot be said with certainty that I have felt no hope at all in the last month. Nonetheless, when I sat in church today and felt this surge of hope, I was overwhelmed. Here was something I could hold on to. Here was something to write about.
What is hope?
For me, hope is that thing you feel when you look into the future with new found eyes and see a picture you never thought possible until it became real in your imagination. Don’t be sidetracked by my juxtaposition of “real” and “imagination” because if there is one thing I have learned in my life, and there’s not, there’s many things, it’s that the power of your imagination makes unbelievable things real. There’s something absolutely beautiful about a story that’s created from bits and pieces of your life mixed in with something you saw on TV once and a little dash of your favorite writer. This is how my imagination works. This is the root of my hope, the tree that grows within me and occasionally blooms just to catch my attention.
Hope is the reminder that no matter how my story looks right now, the end is no where in sight. One of my favorite things to say is that there is no happy ending. I even gave a whole sermon with this central theme recently. I don’t believe in happy endings. Wherever there appears to be an ending, it is merely a continuation of a story. If happy endings were true things, then my story should have ended a long time ago. Perhaps with a long ride through the streets of my childhood suburb or with my first kiss. Maybe after finishing third in a speech competition or convincing my friend to stop cutting himself. Some potential endings are laced with sadness that make the joy all that much more apparent. Like driving out of town with tears in my eyes across the brand new bridge for the first time on my way to college orientation. Or another time I cried my way out of town over that same bridge five years later, with my car packed to move across the country. All these “endings” were only made happy because of hope.
I have set out to change my life on this pilgrimage. I only say this because change is inevitable. The moment I decided I must do this thing, the change had already begun. It scares me, though, that while I am changing somewhere on the other side of the world, my family and friends will also be changing. I am missing two weddings while I am away. These are not small changes in my cousin’s and best friend’s lives, but huge ones that I won’t be here to witness. My brother is expecting my first niece/nephew little more than two months into the race. Not only will my immediate family change, but this child will grow and develop before I have had the chance to call it by name and hold it in my arms. This change scares me. What if my friend moves on when we no longer have our weekly “date”? What if I never get to be the aunt I wish to be because I missed these first few months?
And then today, as I sit in church and go through the motions of a very busy morning, it hits me. This picture that has suddenly been conjured up by my imagination of sitting at a table with my father and my godfather at an annual conference some years down the line. The decision I made last Sunday while driving from Starbucks to work on a beautiful morning as given me hope. Ordination back in my home state/conference is my next move after the race. I will join the ranks of some of my fellow seminary friends and become a United Methodist pastor, because, whether I want to admit it or not, I’m called to.
And so, I have hope. No matter what changes with me on the race or with my family and friends while I am gone, there will still be a yearly meeting of pastors in Peoria, IL. I will still have the chance to once again sit at a table with my father, godfather, and others who have influenced me in my call; to join them at this table as an equal. Of course, all those who have truly influenced me will never sit at a table together because they are spread from IL to TX. But, this hope in a place I will always belong can move me through the change into a future moved and known by God. But I can never get there without first going on the World Race.
Which I hope includes gorgeous picnics like this one.
