Movin On Up
by Scott Dalen
Feel free to interpret that title anyway you like...and if you are hearing the theme song to the Jefferson's in your head now, congrats...you have reached the same mental level as me...of course, that's not always a good thing. I do wear a blaze orange hat around after all. How sane can I be?
But I digress.
I sit here thinking about the past and the future. I'm reminiscing because right now Ah-ha's song "Take on Me" is playing on the radio, which makes me think of the 80's. Thinking of the 80's puts me in the mode of remembering the piano bar that several of us went to a couple weeks back during our time on campus. They played 80's music all night, which was cool.
I'm also thinking back to times when I wasn't quite so busy. It is with a heavy heart that I made a phone call today ending a period in which I served as a lay minister on a monthly basis. There is a small country church outside of town that I have served once a month for about 18 months as worship leader. I greatly enjoy it, but between my regular job, school work, contextual work at church, and attempting to have something of a family life, I just can't swing it anymore. It's actually been several months since I've been able to be there, and after a lot of prayer and percolation (of the mental variety) I made the call today.
Side note, now that Ah-Ha is done, Bon Jovi just came on. That makes me think of my friend and classmate Lisa, who is obsessed with old Johnny boy. I sent her a text just to let her know he was on the radio. I think I was able to hear her exclamation of joy from 100 miles away.
As far as the future, I'm pondering on what my next few semesters are going to look like. I have a pretty good handle on spring semester, but after that things are up in the air. I've mentioned before that my cohort is not slated to be on campus in June as we are "scheduled" for cpe this summer. However, several will still be around. I'm trying to decide if I will be one of them. I can spare 1 week of pto from work, so in the very least I know I won't be there the full two weeks. However, I'd like to try and take something while I have the opportunity.
One possibility is to take Systematics 2...aka Jesus and the Triune God. It is on campus for a week then finishing up online through the summer. The kicker, we're supposed to take that class next fall along with foundations of pastoral care. I've already taken pastoral care, and if I manage to take Systematics, that would leave the fall wide open for me to try and knock out CPE, which is sort of my tentative plan right now.
Hold on a second...did I just say "my plan?" Yah, I did. Seriously, I know better than that. Every time I try to plan something, God throws me a curve ball.
I think He's trying to teach me to sit back and follow His lead.
I'm still working on learning that lesson.
But I digress.
I sit here thinking about the past and the future. I'm reminiscing because right now Ah-ha's song "Take on Me" is playing on the radio, which makes me think of the 80's. Thinking of the 80's puts me in the mode of remembering the piano bar that several of us went to a couple weeks back during our time on campus. They played 80's music all night, which was cool.
I'm also thinking back to times when I wasn't quite so busy. It is with a heavy heart that I made a phone call today ending a period in which I served as a lay minister on a monthly basis. There is a small country church outside of town that I have served once a month for about 18 months as worship leader. I greatly enjoy it, but between my regular job, school work, contextual work at church, and attempting to have something of a family life, I just can't swing it anymore. It's actually been several months since I've been able to be there, and after a lot of prayer and percolation (of the mental variety) I made the call today.
Side note, now that Ah-Ha is done, Bon Jovi just came on. That makes me think of my friend and classmate Lisa, who is obsessed with old Johnny boy. I sent her a text just to let her know he was on the radio. I think I was able to hear her exclamation of joy from 100 miles away.
As far as the future, I'm pondering on what my next few semesters are going to look like. I have a pretty good handle on spring semester, but after that things are up in the air. I've mentioned before that my cohort is not slated to be on campus in June as we are "scheduled" for cpe this summer. However, several will still be around. I'm trying to decide if I will be one of them. I can spare 1 week of pto from work, so in the very least I know I won't be there the full two weeks. However, I'd like to try and take something while I have the opportunity.
One possibility is to take Systematics 2...aka Jesus and the Triune God. It is on campus for a week then finishing up online through the summer. The kicker, we're supposed to take that class next fall along with foundations of pastoral care. I've already taken pastoral care, and if I manage to take Systematics, that would leave the fall wide open for me to try and knock out CPE, which is sort of my tentative plan right now.
Hold on a second...did I just say "my plan?" Yah, I did. Seriously, I know better than that. Every time I try to plan something, God throws me a curve ball.
I think He's trying to teach me to sit back and follow His lead.
I'm still working on learning that lesson.
posted by Scott Dalen at 11:21 AM
1 Comments:
Scott,
What a tough call that must have been. Sometimes I think that part of the Lenten/Easter message is that we must learn to let go, because only by letting go can we reach out to grasp the next thing God has in store for us. It still sucks, but it allows for the power of God to pull good from bad (or better from good).
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