I love the album Black Gives Way to Blue by Alice in Chains. It came out in 2009- 14 years since their last release and the subsequent loss of their lead singer, Layne Staley. The first song in the disc is All Secrets Known. Hope, a new beginning, time, time to start living, like just before we died.
It is hard to articulate the sense of transition I've been dealing with since 2007 after graduating from Fuller Theological Seminary. I was able to utilize the degree and get into higher education. I enjoyed a trip back to India with my dear friend and colleague in 2008. I even got to spend time in Boston and the Carolina's with my wife and some great new friends in the Doctor of Ministry Cohort at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
But during this time, things were changing. The ground was shifting under me, no matter how hard I worked to keep things stable. My children enjoyed the school district they were apart of in Missouri; lots of good activities. Cheer-leading, basketball, academic clubs and old fashioned parades through the small town during the holidays were the norm for us. Still, my wife and I were evolving in our theology, our ecclesiology and world view.
What can you do? What you had, did and enjoyed, what you had success at, even at a fairly young age starts to change, transition, slip away. How odd that in some ways you reconnect with your roots in the rural Ozarks in Southern Missouri, while being forced to move forward and into new directions if you are going to stay true to yourself, to the convictions of your heart.
Somehow, it is working albeit painful. We seem to be getting grounded and connected to our roots in ways that we did not anticipate, while moving into richer, fuller traditions of the Church. These traditions are so rich, while they also demand evaluation and answers to the question, "how then shall we live" in the 21st Century, in a world and nation that is changing rapidly.
So we dig deep, cleave to and rely on the rich grace we find from God in Christ, and move forward into his purpose and plan- more to come.
