Hello on the first of June,
As noted by my father regularly, time will begin to seemingly pass by more rapidly. Of the many wise things, truthful things he said, this one might be the more accurate. At least, that seems to be the case as I consider how we got to the first of June, and it seems like only a few weeks ago it was mid-March, and I was watching the tournaments. In barely three weeks, we will have entered yet another season, the proverbial days will begin to shorten, and as the Spring has gone, I not sure we even had one. When I ponder the concept of time, there is always a rather dichotomous perception, simultaneously flying by when I look at the breadth of past time as well as the immediate plodding along when we anticipate something yet to occur.
And yet the flying by aspect seems to be more my sense of things, the daily routine as I go about what I either must or decide to accomplish. The reality of retirement has been an evolving process, something I can truly say I was less prepared for, something more unpredictable, than I might have ever anticipated. While I have noted more than a few times, I am quite sure I never really had any sense of what I would do “when I grew up,” I do believe my life took me down paths, roads never imagined. We often work toward something, and yet have little control over anything beyond ourselves. How often do we follow some pathway, roadway, because it seems appropriate, less difficult or contentious? How often do we proceed because something is expected of us, possibly even demanded? But more importantly, even significantly, as a consequence we fail to experience, let alone even realize, the alternative road?
When I reminisce, reflecting on 70 years, what I recognize clearly is how specific decisions placed me firmly on a particular path, and more often than I realized at the time I had little idea where it might lead nor its outcome – that path, be it a somewhat reasonable or perhaps a misguided esplanade, would, however, change life’s trajectory. Certainly, looking back, some of the more consequential choices led me down somewhere profoundly different. A choice to return to Dana my senior year, to pursue seminary postgrad rather than law school, can easily be shown to take a very different direction, but it also led to dating someone, who would become my first wife, something that had tremendous consequences. Choosing to move from Lehighton to the Upper Peninsula following a first call not only to old change my geographic location, it would lead to a change of vocation. And applying for a position as someone ABD would create an encounter with a small statured Austrian, as well as lead me back to Pennsylvania, where to night I attended a dinner for an amazing young woman who is graduating from high school, the same young woman whose parents were my most influential colleagues, a relationship that began in Wisconsin, and about 17 years ago I watch her take her first steps.
Only God knows what might have happened might my decisions been something different. I had a conversation with a former student about just how deterministic he believes life to be. Every interaction I had in the last 24 hours can be traced back to something that was decided some 27 years ago if I choose to pull that thread, seeing how it might all unravel. What if the significant time I spent my first couple years back in Bloomsburg would have prompted a different choice? What if I had not asked a young woman if she were available to clean my apartment and eventually my house? What if I had not gone to Poland a second year and encouraged a young man he needed to get up and get on a bus? Is it all preordained or do we have some input into it all? And even farther back, what if I had not asked someone if they were a seminary student when they walked into a gas station, where I had a part-time job as a cashier?
Currently, even what now seem less consequential choices because of retirement are not any less important. One of the breakfast bunch told me I never listen to his advice, and I told him that I might heed his advice more than he believed to be the case. The invitation of someone to attend a Wednesday morning group at our public library had introduced me to yet another incredible group of people, moving my social group more into the community versus the academy. The poem by Robert Frost is well-known, and the relationship I have to that poem is an interesting one. An intern pastor at my little home congregation in NW Iowa was Ruth Frost. She was both a talented artist (and she taught members how to create stained glass, which still adorn the sanctuary there), and a prolific writer in her town right. While they are not related, I believe his poem and her life have profound parallels. She was and is a gifted preacher and counselor, and the ministry she engaged in during that year in my home congregation was effective and life-changing for many, including my father.
To say my father was a traditionalist would be a bit of an understatement, and I remember him referred to this woman intern as a “girl.” He struggled to see a female in a role headed toward being clergy. Even then I was aware of the importance of inclusivity before it was as much of a buzz, if I can characterize that time as such. I think the reality of Ruth would have more consequence for my father than he knew as his own daughter would share her own sexual presence not all that many years later. I have never really pondered that too carefully until writing this blog. I think, looking back, perhaps the Rev. Frost did more to open eyes, though she did not openly explain herself in that time, perhaps for both my father and my sister, each from their own view and experience. It is something I need to ponder a bit more intentionally. What I see most clearly, both in its context from then to now, is the complexity of how choices made, yes, roads taken or not, simultaneously allow us options and eliminate them. Perhaps that is merely stating the obvious, but even what seems obvious is never as simple as we hope it to be. If the past week has done anything, it has reminded me there are no givens, no guarantees, there is life, and the path is seldom clearly marked, and more importantly, it can be treacherous, traumatic, and unpredictable. In the end, it is a road nonetheless, and we are always dependent on the love of another.
Thank you as always for reading,
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 