My apologies for the blogging absence. I know you've just been on the edges of your seats, dying to know when I'd post something new. (...Right?) As it turns out, they like to keep you kind of busy at seminary. I'm hoping at some point to share, here, some of the (what I think is) cool stuff I've been learning and thinking about here at CTS. But for now, here are some continued thoughts on life after YAV.
As part of YAV orientation each year, new volunteers are invited to get their craft on and create a bookmark. (Or, rather, decorate a pre-cut piece of card stock destined for a protective plastic sleeve. Shiny tassel included.) Markers and stickers abound as each person leaves a bit of his or her identity on a little paper rectangle. Later in the week these bookmarks are piled in a basket, and during a worship service each participant is again invited to take part, this time by picking up someone else's bookmark from the basket. Essentially, we took our new bookmarks with us as we scattered across the world, agreeing to pray for and think about the brother or sister whose bookmark we held.
In theory, our bookmarks' journeys are completed when they are returned to their creator at Transition Retreat in New Mexico. Logistically, this doesn't always happen. Bookmarks get left at placement sites (guilty) and lost amongst luggage, or people aren't able to miss work or school to travel to Ghost Ranch. Life happens.
But when I went to New Mexico back in September, I got my bookmark back. And stuck in the little plastic sleeve, along with the flower stickers and Mumford & Sons lyrics I left there more than a year ago, are grains of Guatemalan sand. I might not have even noticed them if the lovely keeper of my bookmark hadn't pointed them out on our way back to the airport (thanks, Kristi!). But sure enough, they're there.
You know how when you go to the beach the sand gets everywhere? You shower and do the laundry, but there's inevitably still a grain or two or ten in your hair, or in your pocket. A few weeks later you get out the bag you used and unexpectedly it dumps leftover sand all over your floor. A water bottle rolls under your passenger seat months after your beach trip and as you retrieve it you feel the grit of a few long forgotten grains of sand in your hand.
I think that's a little bit how my experience as a YAVA will be. It's been about five months now since I lived in New Orleans, and a good 16 or so since I lived in Nashville. In some ways it seems like I was in both of those places yesterday, and in others it seems like it's been about 8,000 years.
Just when I think I'm on to the next thing--when I'm sure I've dealt with those two years' challenges and embraced their happy memories--I find more sand in my proverbial backpack. A friend who still lives in New Orleans will post a picture of one of my favorite places or things, and I'll realize how much I miss it. Hurricane Isaac hit in August and I was glued to my computer's weather page. I catch a glimpse of the Bluebird on a commercial for that new show Nashville, and I realize how much I want to go back and visit. I think about my experiences in both of those places and realize to what an incredible degree they have shaped me and the path towards some sort of ministry that I am now pursuing. Do I know exactly what that journey will end up looking like? Of course not. But I know that the past two years are a huge part of the reason I'm here, I know that a handful of YAV(A)s are one of my biggest support systems, and I know that I'll probably be finding assorted grains of sand in my bookmarks and backpacks for a long. time. And you know what? I'm okay with that.
Love,
Allison.
No comments:
Post a Comment