Getting out there (and back)
I hope this finds you and yours well and warm. It’s been a couple of weeks, so it’s nice being back.
We went on a little vacation that I’ve titled The Great California Road Trip. We left the Sierra Valley on a Friday, spent one night in Yosemite, two nights in Joshua Tree, two nights in Santa Barbara, two nights in San Francisco, and then came home. If I did the math right, we covered about 2,000 miles. Not bad.
Yes, it was a lot of fun. Quality time is my Love Language (yes, I know you were wondering) and there was plenty of it. We didn’t really log on to email and I gave up social media for Lent. So we just drove, hung out, stayed in fun AirBNB’s1 and ate some good meals.
The great thing for me, creatively speaking, is that the trip got me out of my head. I spend most of my time in theology books these days. And since this blog follows me where I am, the content here has been quite conceptual these last couple of years. I hope to bring my life (and thusly, this blog) out of the concepts and back into the real world as soon as I can. As great as they are, concepts hit the head, but mostly fail to hit the heart. Stories hit the heart. Poetry hits the heart. Narrative hits the heart. Confession hits the heart. Not concepts. Not really.
Well, I’m immersed in a world of concepts now. And I’m privileged to be able to do this. I wanted and needed to do this. Being a latecomer to the Lutheran tradition, and especially since I’m preparing for ordained ministry in it, I needed to build a solid theological foundation. Well, I’m definitely getting what I paid for and can’t wait to share as much as I can.
But I’m also, first and foremost, a writer. And to be a good writer, one must live life deeply in the real world.
There are only five more weeks of the semester - I’m almost there! After that, I have my summer hospital chaplaincy and then a year-long internship in a local ELCA church along with chaplaincy in a Detention Center.
It looks like there won’t be a smooth transition to the ‘real world’. Rather, it looks like I’ll be launched into it.
But for now, it’s nice being back home. Back in the books. And back here with you.
As Ever,
Jonas
We even stayed in a tiny house in Joshua Tree that had a compost toilet. We saw it on the Airbnb description but had no idea what it really meant. Basically, you do your business while [sitting on/standing before] a particle board box with a hole cut in it and everything is captured in a plastic bag. Then you cover your mess, like a cat, with wood pellets. We got so much comedic mileage out of that little toilet. Unforgettable, for sure.