You don't have to...I will

So, I realized, in conversation with my mother this week that I have in many ways been avoiding my blog this semester. I think this has been mainly due, in all honesty, to the fact that these past few months have in many ways felt scattered. A blog, to the eye, is so structured – there’s the standard format: a heading, a body of text, pictures interspersed between. What’s been going on inside and around me has felt at times, utterly chaotic – and, utterly resistant to conforming to the virtual world.

There have been all sorts of changes in my life over these past few months. For starters – I’ve moved – again. This time it is to the Northeastern United States. In my Southern mind I have crossed the border. I am in Yankee territory. This is a whole other culture, really. I am surrounded by shopping outlets, suburbs and highways – I catch myself at times looking for those vast expanses of corn fields. When driving down any major road, I have to go right to go left. I can’t pump my own gas. I have to pay to park. At times I long for a “hello” wave from a passer on the street or a smile from a store clerk. And, really, people are friendly here, it’s just a different type of friendliness – it’s just an adjustment from the friendliness that trickles out of the slow steady pace of Southern life.

There have been all sorts of emotional changes in this semester as well. I’ve realized that in many ways, I am still grieving over my departure from my Belfast family. At times I catch myself wishing for a pair of ruby slippers that will somehow magically transport me back to that place where the children of Ballybeen beckoned for my undivided attention. I long for conversations over cups of tea and biscuits. I even find myself missing long bus rides and potato dishes of all kinds.

I’m having to make new friends. Not to say that this isn’t going well – in fact, it’s going quite well. It’s just that all of them are roughly my age, and a good majority of them share my beliefs and values. Not exactly the reality I faced each day last year. Yes, friendships have blossomed in many ways this semester, yet some of them feel estranged, especially those friendships exposed to distance and other such circumstances.

I, and I know that I’m not alone in this, have several points over this semester seriously questioned my call to ministry. I have (probably much at the rolling of God’s eyes, because God does have a sense of humor) rattled off excuses: I am just not a good enough speaker, I don’t see myself as a leader, I don’t understand scripture well enough, and the list goes on…

But even in the midst of the changes and what has sometimes felt chaotic, there have been moments of beautiful, God-given peace – and they’ve come in some of the most unexpected ways and in the most unexpected forms.

One of these moments, for instance, was simply doing my homework. A book that was chosen for the Introduction to Old Testament course this semester was Getting Involved with God by Ellen Davis. I really enjoyed many of Davis’ commentaries on the different books of the Bible, but the one that struck a chord with me was her commentary on the book of Jeremiah. Something unique to the book of Jeremiah, as Davis appropriately points out, is the notion of lament. Jeremiah vehemently cries out in anger toward God and challenges God throughout the biblical text. That the compilers of the Jewish canon chose to incorporate Jeremiah into the Old Testament speaks great volumes to a profound theological idea: anger is ok. In fact, it’s needed for full healing and forgiveness. It helps us better understand ourselves and move forward. Actually, as Davis also points out, Jeremiah (and also so many of the Psalms) point toward the wisdom literature of Ecclesiastes: “There is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” ~ Ecclesiastes 3.

Before I had gotten to seminary, I had never fully considered anger in this light. My perception of anger has for so very long been an emotion that is not meant to be long or given much face to. I’m discovering that I have trouble pinpointing where this conception comes from – sometimes I think it has to do with my Southern raising. However, I know that my misconception of it has affected those that I love in harmful ways and at times has caused me at times to act irrationally and on impulse.

Needless to say, sometimes simply opening up my homework assignment in seminary has proved more beneficial and enriching than I might have expected on several occasions, and I give thanks for these moments.

Praise is also due in the fact that I have had a well-paying and fulfilling job this first semester of seminary. I have been working as a part-time personal assistant for a local professor who is in the middle of a divorce and who suffers from multiple health problems. On a weekly basis, I run grocery errands, collect children from school, type letters of recommendation and do various odds and ends around the house. I find that a great majority of my time is spent just listening – listening to past and present hurts and frustrations of a broken lengthy marriage. It has been a truly learning experience in gathering the words of comfort and consolation to administer when they are needed. I return to campus every time feeling ironically at peace and filled in a way that I have not known. I am curious to see what God is going to do with this.

Praise is also due to the fact that my health has been well. My stomach has been doing wonderfully after a long battle this summer to feel normal again. I am even more thankful for the fact that I have been able to reduce my levels of anxiety, particularly about schoolwork (something that has proved a challenge for me in the past). I feel like I am absorbing so much, and I feel at peace as I hear God saying: “You don’t have to worry Hannah – I am with you, and I will be always.”

I give thanks also for the presence of my YAV friends at Princeton. It has been a blessing to have people around me who are going through the same adjustments I am and who will genuinely listen and identify with my longings to be back on another continent at times.

Praise and thanks are also due to God for all of the family, friends and loved ones who have been supporting me and praying for me during this first step of my seminary journey. I count myself so very blessed to have the support and prayers of those of First Presbyterian Church, Lynchburg and those of Dundonald Methodist Church in Belfast. A special thanks goes up for my grandmother who has been in many ways a prayer warrior on my behalf this semester. Also praise is extended for a mother who calls and wakes me up every morning and a father who keeps rooting for me.

Blessings,

Hannah