Turns in the Road

I remember like it was yesterday.  It was my choice.  It was a big choice, though it didn't seem so at the time.  I was in college, my second year, taking courses for per-ministerial training and thinking I was headed for the Episcopal priesthood.  Only 19 years old, though, I knew I didn't know enough of what the world was about to move ahead with my career goal. 

Sitting one fall day in the south end of the campus enjoying the warm-cool weather, I decided to put my education on hold and go "see the world."  I didn't really know what that meant, but I knew I had to do it.  I had to go out and learn what it meant to live in the world by the people I would someday be ministering to in my church.  It turned out to be one of the biggest turns in the road for me.

I've always thought that life, and our living of life, really could be boiled down to just a few big decisions.  You know what I mean?  Those moments when we are pliable and open to new directions and possibilities.  Those times when we're able to shut doors behind us and move on without any sense of regret or loss.  As if all there was in life is what there was to be in life.  And all that really mattered was making the choice.  Taking the turn in the road.  Courageously and with assurance that whatever is ahead would be easily taken in stride.  All obstacles would be overcome - certainly and without hesitation.

Maybe is was just part of the whims of a starry-eyed teenager, but I think not.  I've always been most at peace with myself when I stepped out in life on faith, if you will, and just went for it.  Now, I'm facing retirement.  Forty years plus since that day on the south university campus.  And that feeling is in me again.  I believe a turn in the road is ahead, maybe like I've never experienced before.  So, be it!

New Days & New Ways

Hello Everyone!  My how exciting to begin a new blog.  I'm looking forward to sharing a lot about what I see is happening, how it is doing so and what differences it is making in my world and maybe in yours.  I'll spend most of time time looking through the lenses of my worldview - politically independent and religiously evangelical Christian - but I hope to hear from many with differing views.  I look at blogging as a way of sharing personal views with an inclination toward stretching and moving into new realms of thinking and living.  It helps to be able to express yourself through the written word, an  art that I am constantly trying to improve upon.

I've had some experience blogging before as part of a church-run blog, but it became so negative and full of opinions that I was actually glad to see it go away.  There I spent a good deal of my time arguing social justice issues, especially the give and take of the homosexual agenda on our American and church cultures.  I learned a lot and was pushed to new understandings in my experience.  Here, though, I wish to spend the most of my time relating the more personal things that I have on my heart and mind right now and how I think those things might make a difference in the world.

So, who am I?  I am a late middle-aged man who is on the brink of retirement.  Born just after the beginning of the baby-boom generation, I've seen enough of life to have a little wisdom, but not so much of life to have given up seeking new days and new ways in this wonderful gift called life.  I look forward to hearing from you and hope you're able to make sense out of what I've got to share here.