A Happier, Non-Dissertation Post.

I know I said I wasn’t planning to do dissertation blogging this week, and I’ve gone back and forth as to whether I felt like blogging anything at all. This is an introspective time of year, and there is, if anything, too much introspection in my life these days. A little break from that has been nice. And I’m never much for New Year’s sentimentality.

However, 2015 was a good year in our household, and I wanted to mention a couple of those positive things which have had nothing to do with my dissertation.

First, we were thrilled to be able to do some traveling earlier in the year, making it to California not once, but twice—first to visit family at the start of the year (the first time we’d seen my in-laws in almost three years), and later to Berkeley so that Kevin could receive his M.A. from the Graduate Theological Union.  It was our first time back in five years. 

I have often thought back on the Berkeley years as being remarkably difficult, dislocated ones, and while I don’t doubt the accuracy of those memories, I was surprised how many positive associations I felt . . . Looking at the familiar vendors along Telegraph, eating at Bongo Burger ( . . .possibly more than once), finally making the steep hike into the Hills to see the Rose Garden—something I’d wanted to do when we lived there, but probably wasn’t in good enough shape to manage at the time, or confident enough to venture on my own. That was an oddly triumphant moment for me. 

I suppose many of these feelings had to do with coming back a little different and a little older. Certainly our life doesn’t look the way I imagined it would back then—we didn’t guess, for instance, that Kevin would be walking for an M.A. instead of a Ph.D. after making a dramatic career switch—but I don’t think I would trade any of the experiences.

The other major development, of course, was our house—speaking of things I didn’t expect. I had hoped for a home of our own someday, but the possibility was hardly on my radar screen a year ago. We began looking at homes shortly after returning from Berkeley in mid-May (very much on a whim, initially), ultimately placed three different offers, and had an offer accepted on June 29. Not even six weeks later, we moved into our very own little place. Thanks to our wonderful realtors, as well as the surprisingly happy-go-lucky attitude with which we approached the thing, we enjoyed the process more often than not. We had been content in our city apartment (though we’d frankly outgrown it), and the house-hunting was marked by a vague sense of wonder at finding ourselves grown-up enough for such a step. I think the combination of those things helped us feel fairly peaceful about whatever happened. Even now, it all feels a bit dreamlike to me. 

I don’t think the decision to buy this house was a strongly emotional one for either of us. I didn’t have a feeling of its being The Right House—but once we moved in, it has become that more and more. I’m still surprised how happy it has made me.

Both these things were great blessings for us, and I hope that both—time with family and continuing to set up our home—will be major themes of 2016 as well.

If you’ll pardon a last bit of introspection—I reflected recently that so often, I pray for a deeper walk with God and an assurance of his presence; and yet, when he allows things in my life that force me to depend on him moment by moment (such as attacks of anxiety I can’t really control, or laughably minor aches and pains, or nagging unknowns about the future), I immediately beg for them to be taken away. Kind of ruefully funny at times, but a certain mark of the Fall all the same. Not that it’s wrong in itself to ask for His rescue—but I hope I won’t be so quick to overlook the opportunities the Lord gives to deepen my delight in Him, and not in my circumstances. He is so very gracious to do that, and to give comfort through the fellowship of His people, as I’ve found many times through this blog in recent months. Thank you guys, again, for your part in that.

Muddled Instincts About Home

Yesterday's drive from Pittsburgh to St. Louis might have been my weepiest trip ever. I have a couple of guesses why, but the main reason, I think, is that after more than a decade of living elsewhere and spending only brief stints with my family, I'm beginning to feel stretched thin.

I've had the opportunity to live in several cities while pursuing different levels of education -- four years in Roanoke, Virginia, three years in New Haven, two in the San Francisco Bay area, and now over three years in St. Louis. I rarely thought twice about moving somewhere new. It just came with the territory of my chosen field. Not to mention, it was fun, and an unusual privilege, to get to live in such diverse regions throughout my 20s. I have good memories and have found something to love about each place that I've lived.

In the past couple of years, though, my tolerance for distance seems to have sharply declined. In fact, I am tired of moving, and the adventure of relocation is beginning to feel lost on me. I guess that's fitting, in a sense. It's a good thing to want to put down roots, and for them to grow deep instead of staying shallow. And there's no denying that practically all of my roots, dating back many generations, are in Western Pennsylvania. It makes sense that my longing for a stable home would be directed there, and it accounts for why, each time I leave, I start to feel sadder and sadder as the topography grows flatter and the names less familiar as we head southwest. I feel like there is less of me available to stretch so far, that I won't last very much longer if I have to keep doing it. I'm not so sure I'm built for this.

Of course, as I think about it, it's ridiculous to grumble about 12 years away; many people have sacrificed so much more to spend decades serving in farther-flung locations, seeing the people they love more rarely than I do, and perhaps never getting to return. It's not as if this is an exile! I have so little to complain about.

At the same time, I seem to have absorbed a notion that my status as a Christian disciple is measured by the extremity of the location in which I end up. While I should be willing to gladly go wherever I am called, that surely can't be right. At the very least, it shouldn't be right that I feel guilty for longing to move back home. Is it? It doesn't seem right to feel ashamed of wanting to live near the people who have given the most to me and within the landscape that is most familiar and formative for me. (Note that I am not even necessarily wanting to move back to my hometown. I am thinking in terms of, say, serving a rural church in an adjacent county. I could even be okay with teaching at a small college in the West Virginia panhandle or eastern Ohio. Even an hour's distance would be less wrenching.)

I guess this is an instance where balance is needed; just the thing I so often lack. I do know that blood ties are not the ultimate good. If I cast aside everything in the belief that a move home would supply what feels lacking and make me content, I might very well find it to have been a false and empty hope. I know that I will never feel fully at home anywhere in this life.

Part of me wants very much to pray that a door will open up in the next few years to allow us to move closer to my childhood home. I hope that isn't wrong. I know I need to be willing to go wherever the Lord will send us, trusting that He will provide for us there. He has always done that for me, and for us as a young household; He is our constant. But, if I'm honest, I'm not yet able to pray sincerely that I am willing to go wherever God would have us. A lot of messy work will need to happen in my heart before I can.