For three years, I was paid to drive for sometimes five hours at a time. Why am I antsy after two and a half? I grew up driving on the right side of the road and following the traffic patterns for vehicles and pedestrians that go along with that. Why does my body shy away from imaginary traffic coming from the opposite side of the road when I go through a crosswalk? I've always had an answer for every question the instructor poses to the class. Why are my answers now questions?
I had thought that I could pick up the person I was, the one I left in America last September, with little or no problem, as easy as pulling my glassware out of storage and putting it in a new cabinet. (It is, by the way, the world's biggest comfort to be able to drink water out of my glasses and coffee out of my mugs, to eat food off of my plates and out of my bowls, to be reminded of the permanence my life had before and will have again.) I mean, I don't know that I'm in love with that version of myself, but I figured I could borrow back her habits, at least, her patterns of speech and cultural acumen. Heck, the first thing I did when I got into DC was find the NPR station with the best reception in my car. I should be settled and sorted. I'm home.
Orientation was a great comfort when that idea proved to be wrong. "You have to understand that you're not where you were three months ago." "Starting seminary is a big change and you have to acknowledge that. Change is stressful." From introductory lectures to student panels, there was an through-line of understanding and acceptance. "We know you want to look like you've got it all together, to be the one who's got it together so that you can care for someone else. You don't have to pretend like you've got it all together. You won't have it together." Beyond acknowledgement of the stress of transformation that this whole experience would induce, they pushed self-care. Find your sabbath and keep it holy. Talk to people when you feel overwhelmed. You don't have to do this alone; in fact, you can't.
You know the thing I noticed about pastors-in-training? We all read responsive readings with verve. The first worship service we had together, I was stunned by how loud the voices were around me. I felt like the chapel rang with our sound. You know, I know how hard it can be to teach teachers. I've led a couple educator workshops in my day and teachers make for interesting students. But I think if we can preserve that sound, that boldness and unity, even for just a few minutes over the course of a service, I feel like we'll get through this. It's a journey to be shared, apparently, no matter where we've come from.
I missed church on Sunday but I was preached at on Friday and again on Tuesday by people of faith who care deeply about this country and its ideals and its problems. I nodded as I listened, felt a shiver every once in a while when something that felt like, sounded like, must be truth hit my ears. There's an urgency to the questions we ask. There is a world for which we are being prepared and it needs us. It needs our voices and our thoughts, our actions and our hearts. This conviction, this burden of care, this is what stops the sharp points of my mind from slicing into others. I'm called to bring grace into the world. This burden of care is acted out in love, which I feel like I'm daily rediscovering in conversations with friends, in words of support, in surprisingly still-frequent hugs, and in the thousand tiny ways those surrounding me pay attention to me, serve me, bless me, carry me.
In the National Cathedral, there's a statue of Lincoln and an inscription which reads, "Abraham Lincoln whose lonely soul God kindled, is here remembered by a people, their conflict healed by the truth that marches on." On Tuesday, I waved at the moon rock in the stained glass window, I leaned into the quiet a cathedral brings into my soul and mind, I sat in a chapel and prayed, but it was this inscription that sank down into my heart. Whose lonely soul God kindled. Whose lonely soul God kindled.
This feeling here, down in my gut, the one that promises me that we will make the world better, that we will together go forward in love and truth and freedom and beauty and all those other words that put labels on entities that we are privileged to try to understand, this feeling is home. This is where my heart rests. And when the melancholy hits, when I forget or doubt or wander or worry, I really do think I'll have people to bring me back here. God knows I'll need it.
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