23 years (and counting…)

Hands April 10, 2012

On Easter Sunday I had the opportunity to bless the Sacrament.  As I broke the bread, I saw my hands as if I were an outsider – as if they were not my own.  I remembered in that moment that it was Jesus who first broke bread in this most meaningful of sacraments.  What proximate poignancy, that moment, as He etched in symbol the emblems of his blood to be shed that very night in the Garden and His flesh to be torn the following day in the Praetorium and at Golgotha.  With weighty willingness He offered His bread, His wine that night!

As I knelt to pray over the broken bread a pleading prayer was in my heart, “Lord, may I perform this act in all holiness before Thee.”

What transcendent grace, that He entrusts such a sacred act to such a lowly, imperfect man as myself.  May I ever be worthy of that redeeming grace.

Hope March 25, 2012

Hello again to both of my readers, after a LOOOOOONG hiatus.  This blog is an ongoing experiment (testing whether this writer will continue to write), and as such, there are no guarantees whether this is the beginning of a new bright day of blogging, or a mere flash in the pan.  Caveat emptor!

At any rate, I thought I’d write some thoughts about my current state of mind.  It has been a long, hard slog since this last June (you remember what happened to me in June, right?  Oh, I didn’t write about it?  Hmmm…  Well, suffice it to say that I’m now done with my PhD program, though not with a PhD.  I am the proud recipient of an MSF (Master’s in Finance) from Boston College, and have been looking for gainful employment since then – there, now you’re updated).  Various exams kept me busy all summer (including the Massachusetts Bar Exam – I passed), and then the job hunt began.  And continued…

In January I graduated from unemployed to underemployed when I took a Senior Lecturer position at Northeastern University.  But that elusive full-time job has,… well,… eluded me.  It still does.  And in the process, I’ve learned a fair bit about hope.  I don’t know if I can convey any of my learning in any degree of lucidity, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try.

I suppose one thing I’ve learned in this (occasionally miserable) experience is that sometimes tough times are a matter of waiting on the Lord.  I have imagined myself in a dense, damp forest with no map, no trail, and only the dimmest light by which to read my compass (the Holy Ghost), but with the knowledge that the Lord knows the landscape.  He knows that over that rise (that I can’t even see!) there opens a lovely vista and a measure of clarity.  Perhaps even a place of brief rest.  And I can look back at brief moments when I have found a clearing.  Although surrounded by trees, there is some sky overhead, warm light reaching down from above to restore hope and steel me for another effort.

At other times I have seen myself as a measly speck on the pure white wing of a dove flying over a forest, unworthy to cling to such a lovely creature, but fearing to fall and be lost on the wind to land in oblivion on the forest floor, never to rise.  Ahead is a glorious place.  Have I the strength to hold on?  And what is the bird?  The Holy Spirit?  The Savior?

I have seen at midnight the wet rotting logs of shipwreck in the constant surf.  The decaying ribs of a ship’s hull jutting in great curves against the dark sky.  Yet as I watch a log begins to move, rising from the wreckage as if of its own power.  The once mighty mast working its way from the weighty jumble of wood that has held it fast.  I see order rising from chaos – a ship in progress.  Old wood healed and rejuvenated for another journey.  An unfinished ship erect on a still beach under the full moon.  Soon a finished ship.  Sturdy.  Sound.  Seaworthy.  More capable of weathering the storms.  Better equipped for the journey.  The ship sets sail on a quiet morning, briefly lingering in the harbor before venturing on to the open sea.  Where is its destination?  What its course?  Who its Master?  He, only one.