Allow Myself to Introduce . . . Myself

Clearly, as I have not published much this month, I have had little to say. I usually look forward to March since my birthday is this month, but since Easter is so early this year, everything seems to be focused on the festivities surrounding Holy Week and rightly so. These weeks on either side of Easter are really full and so I will not really be taking any time to celebrate my birthday. And, I am becoming more and more agitated by the thought that my age is now unquestionably roundable up to the big 4 - 0. Honestly, I don't feel old. As old as I felt when I was younger and had to pretend to be older and mature, I thought by this time I would feel decrepit. I guess it depends on your perspective.

I also realized that this year marks 18 years since I graduated from high school. So, I have lived as long as it took to graduate from high school again. And, it is amazing to me to think about where I thought my life would lead at the point I left Oklahoma City for the first time, afraid of leaving home and what I had always known to venture into a very safe arena in Waxahachie. Now, looking back at where life has led me in this second 18 years of life is at times startling and at other times completely natural in its evolution. I think this is my greatest struggle with life, how un-unsettling it can be when you look at it over a period of time. Or, more precisely, how unsettling it is that it is not unsettling when you try to look at it from God's perspective. In the end, the big deals of life are almost inconsequential. We spend our evangelical youth looking for the prize known as God's will, only to find that we can only know the answer to that question from day to day. Seldom do we have the calm of knowing more than 24 hours in advance where we will go. I am beginning to take pleasure in not knowing. This, my friends, is a miracle in and of itself.

Last week I started on my journey to ordination as a deacon in the United Methodist Church. As I have said before, I look forward to this process with equal parts joy and loathing. I want to go forward in this endeavour, but I realize it will nail the coffin shut on my old life. And, as I have said many times, although I am glad to be on a new path, sometimes I miss the comfort of the old one. It is the same story, wishing there was even a possibility to bore a hole in a door that God has shut (and shut long before I gave voice to it). It will be good for me to identify myself in this new way. It will give me some additional grounding that I think I need right now and allow me to feel a sense of home within my new fellowship. I really feel the need to complete the severing process that I began in 2002 and by doing so, can go ahead and shut the door on the past for good.

In other news~Our little Madeline is not doing all that well. Her allergy-induced asthma has really been bad these last several weeks. She coughs all the time. In the next few weeks we will likely have her tested for allergens/triggers now that she is old enough to do this. We hope this will help some in treating her.

Misty and I are going on a date tonight for the first time in God only remembers when. Some kind members of our church gave us tickets to the opera for this evening. I am thankful for them, but I wish the opera were next week. I hope to get through it. And, part of me hopes it is really bad because I enjoy bad singing almost as much as I enjoy good singing (and you never know with travelling companies). At least it is Madame Butterfly and Puccini is always good for a nice self-inflicted death scene.