Recently I was talking to a large gathering of incoming first year college students who were on campus for an orientation. Relatively speaking, I am so old, there is no way I can claim to know how they were feeling or what they were thinking. Of course, I could operate with the illusion that I have a clue. But when you think about how they have grown into the late teens that they are, there is no way I can know.
Many of them probably have had cell phones since they were eight years old! And they never knew a world without Facebook or even Twitter. A first-year college student was one-year old when the twin towers of 9/11 were struck by the airplanes. Obama is the first real president they can remember! And so it goes.
And yet, as they prepare to begin college, it is a new chapter in their lives. Many have been very successful in high school, but now they start all over. That is the nature of a new chapter. A new chapter usually builds on the previous chapter, but it is a new beginning. The hope for these college students is they are only four years from yet another new chapter, which starts with their graduation. This means some chapters last longer than others.
All this causes me to step back and ponder the theme of “new chapters.” As you reach old age, you usually have a few chapters in your life’s book. Most of us start that book of life with memories of childhood. Most folks don’t have memories much before four years old. We moved from one farm to another when I was six, so I know those first chapter memories by virtue of the first farm. When we moved, there was a new place and a new context. Those are all post-six years old memories---another chapter.
There can be multiple phases of childhood, I suppose, but definitely a new chapter began with high school. Church was part of those childhood chapters and church continue to be part of the story in high school. But church was not important. To be honest, it would have been more like membership in one more club---like 4-H or something. I think church is the best way to put it, because I went to church. I am not sure there was much faith or commitment. I probably thought there was, but in retrospect, the faith and commitment part was tepid. I needed experience.
And as I look at first year college students, that is what they are setting themselves up for when they come to college. They are going to have experiences. Some experiences will simply elicit some growth. Other experience may actually transform them. Some will graduate from college as very new, mature people. That is what happened to me. I went into college as an Indiana farm boy who thought he might return to the farm. Instead upon graduation I headed to seminary and ultimately a Ph.D. and a calling that I could not have imagined in high school.
I attribute these successive chapters to the Spirit at work in my life. In some ways it is fair to say in college I got a degree and I got the Spirit. Both set me up for new chapters. When I say I got the Spirit, it might imply I had some major religious experience---perhaps a revival service replete with an altar call and all that. But that has not been my pilgrimage. Mine has been more evolutionary.
It is as if the Spirit has lured me into new ways of being. The Spirit of God has been a “pull” in my life, rather than a “push.” I have had to discern the pull, rather than know precisely what was happening. For me new chapters usually begin that way. Unlike college, new chapters in the life of the Spirit have not been things you apply for, be accepted and then enroll. New chapters for me often begin quite innocently---usually with just a hint.
I don’t get drum rolls and lightening announcing a new chapter. More than likely, I sense a new chapter might be in the offing when I become more clear the previous chapter is nearing an end. This self-awareness is important because it means I have to pay attention to what presently is happening. And I have to cultivate that awareness to be attentive. Complacency is a spiritual threat, I am convinced. When I become complacent, I run the risk of losing a sensitivity to how the Spirit is at work in my life.
I am happy for the young college students. They likely have many chapters ahead in their lives. I hope to help them become alert to the Spirit that wants to work in and through them. Our contemporary culture pays little heed to spiritual presence and how that presence wants our lives to unfold. The young ones will hear a great deal about career, but much less about calling. They will hear more about success, but much less about meaning.
I don’t know how many more chapters I have. But I don’t concern myself about that. If we are in touch with the Spirit’s presence, there is a little more to do in this chapter. And then as we begin a new one, there will be appropriate spiritual work to do there. Even in retirement, there is some spiritual work to be done---appropriate to that chapter.
And so it was, as I pondered on new chapters.
Many of them probably have had cell phones since they were eight years old! And they never knew a world without Facebook or even Twitter. A first-year college student was one-year old when the twin towers of 9/11 were struck by the airplanes. Obama is the first real president they can remember! And so it goes.
And yet, as they prepare to begin college, it is a new chapter in their lives. Many have been very successful in high school, but now they start all over. That is the nature of a new chapter. A new chapter usually builds on the previous chapter, but it is a new beginning. The hope for these college students is they are only four years from yet another new chapter, which starts with their graduation. This means some chapters last longer than others.
All this causes me to step back and ponder the theme of “new chapters.” As you reach old age, you usually have a few chapters in your life’s book. Most of us start that book of life with memories of childhood. Most folks don’t have memories much before four years old. We moved from one farm to another when I was six, so I know those first chapter memories by virtue of the first farm. When we moved, there was a new place and a new context. Those are all post-six years old memories---another chapter.
There can be multiple phases of childhood, I suppose, but definitely a new chapter began with high school. Church was part of those childhood chapters and church continue to be part of the story in high school. But church was not important. To be honest, it would have been more like membership in one more club---like 4-H or something. I think church is the best way to put it, because I went to church. I am not sure there was much faith or commitment. I probably thought there was, but in retrospect, the faith and commitment part was tepid. I needed experience.
And as I look at first year college students, that is what they are setting themselves up for when they come to college. They are going to have experiences. Some experiences will simply elicit some growth. Other experience may actually transform them. Some will graduate from college as very new, mature people. That is what happened to me. I went into college as an Indiana farm boy who thought he might return to the farm. Instead upon graduation I headed to seminary and ultimately a Ph.D. and a calling that I could not have imagined in high school.
I attribute these successive chapters to the Spirit at work in my life. In some ways it is fair to say in college I got a degree and I got the Spirit. Both set me up for new chapters. When I say I got the Spirit, it might imply I had some major religious experience---perhaps a revival service replete with an altar call and all that. But that has not been my pilgrimage. Mine has been more evolutionary.
It is as if the Spirit has lured me into new ways of being. The Spirit of God has been a “pull” in my life, rather than a “push.” I have had to discern the pull, rather than know precisely what was happening. For me new chapters usually begin that way. Unlike college, new chapters in the life of the Spirit have not been things you apply for, be accepted and then enroll. New chapters for me often begin quite innocently---usually with just a hint.
I don’t get drum rolls and lightening announcing a new chapter. More than likely, I sense a new chapter might be in the offing when I become more clear the previous chapter is nearing an end. This self-awareness is important because it means I have to pay attention to what presently is happening. And I have to cultivate that awareness to be attentive. Complacency is a spiritual threat, I am convinced. When I become complacent, I run the risk of losing a sensitivity to how the Spirit is at work in my life.
I am happy for the young college students. They likely have many chapters ahead in their lives. I hope to help them become alert to the Spirit that wants to work in and through them. Our contemporary culture pays little heed to spiritual presence and how that presence wants our lives to unfold. The young ones will hear a great deal about career, but much less about calling. They will hear more about success, but much less about meaning.
I don’t know how many more chapters I have. But I don’t concern myself about that. If we are in touch with the Spirit’s presence, there is a little more to do in this chapter. And then as we begin a new one, there will be appropriate spiritual work to do there. Even in retirement, there is some spiritual work to be done---appropriate to that chapter.
And so it was, as I pondered on new chapters.
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