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I finally completed casting for the Christmas Pageant last night. I went to the Brown Cow with my notebook and a couple dozen tiny scraps of paper on which I'd written the names of kids. It must have looked as if I was playing a strange game of solitaire. "Bobby and Susan, OK. Now if I drop in Matt...no! That messes it all up. Start over." Now comes the easy job - directing the play. That's really the best part, getting to work with kids on telling a story. Once casting is accomplished, half the director's work is done. Some second-year Divs have begun to think about running for next year's student leadership positions, especially co-heads. Elections happen at the beginning of December, so M and I have been making plans, along with the Div Faculty administrator, for nominations and elections and whatnot. The result is a flurry of e-mail, in the middle of which one realizes, "Oh, yeah. I won't be co-head next year. I won't be at Trinity at all." It's an odd sensation, to be answering questions and helping people plan for one's own departure, especially so far from graduation. I've not begun the natural "I'm almost finished" process. It's going to be a bit sad, graduating, but I suppose every good happiness is tinged with some sorrow. In this case it'll be the loss of a community, the loss of a routine and the inevitable distancing of friends. Again, as when I left Milwaukee, I'll step outside of where I'm comfortable and successful and go I know not where. I'm hurtling toward the exit with only the vaguest knowledge of my direction from there. I suppose that's the nature of God's call, to all of us. We're called to leave safe assumptions and comfort zones and enter into the unknown, trusting that God will be with us. New jobs, lost loves, moving to a new city...and some moments are harder than others, such as discovering you have cancer or that a loved one has died. Those are the sorrows without happiness, sometimes without any hope in sight at all. We all face moments of crucifixion. The difficult thing, which Our Lord mentions in this week's gospel (Mark 13:1-8), is to trust that catastrophe is not the end, that pain is the beginning of birth pangs. What's born is partly up to us, mostly up to God. The hardest part is just figuring out where to go after the dust finally settles. Where am I, now that this important part of my life is gone? We usually find the way, but it sure can be painful. |
