ARRIVAL

I am writing this reflection at a desk in a rented third floor walk-up in Woburn, Massachusetts. Two weeks ago Jean and I were finishing the sorting and packing of our belongings in preparation for a move to Boston. We planned to arrive in time to witness the birth of our first grandchild, due on April 7th. On Sunday, March 18^th, daughter Rebecca called saying that little Gus was on his way, three weeks early. We rushed Jean onto a plane, and she was present for little Gus' birth on Monday morning. Jean stayed the week and flew back to Madison Saturday, March 24th. Son Timothy flew in on Sunday, the 25th. We packed madly on Monday and Tuesday so the moving van could load on Wednesday, the 28th. On ThursdayTim accompanied us in our two Prius caravan from Madison to Boston. We arrived the following Saturday, March 31^st after stops in Cleveland, Niagara Falls and Ithaca New York.

Since then, we have been settling into our rented apartment, getting to know the area, and spending time with Rebecca, Dan and little Gus. It seems appropriate that our move occurred during the season of Passover and Easter. For both of these Holy Days commemorate transitions in which communities of faith ventured into the unknown propelled by a sense of call. We too felt a sense of call when our children invited us to live closer to them. It seemed that we were being invited to turn the page to a new chapter in our lives, as individuals and as a couple.

Today however, I feel strangely disconnected from my moorings. I am no longer a part of the life I knew in Madison, Wisconsin. As yet I do not feel a part of the Boston community. There is a childlike voice in me that echoes the words uttered by my three year old grandnephew, Tyler, when his family moved. He and my brother-in-law were sitting on a bench in a strange new city. Tyler looked at Gary and said, “Grandpa, how are we going to get out of here?” Yes, something in me yearns to return to my familiar life in Madison.

But this is only half the story. Something else in me knows that I must respond to that which is calling if I am to live my life fully. In part this is a call to greater connection with my family - Jean, Timothy, Rebecca, Dan and little Gus. Yet it's more than that. It's related to Living With Soul. Geoffery Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (1945-61) said, “Until you know that life is interesting – and find it so - you haven't found your soul.”

Perhaps this is it. Even with all the dis-ease of this transition - concerns about the higher cost of living on the east coast, sadness about leaving old friends, questions about engaging my new life in meaningful ways – there is the sense that my life will continue to be interesting. It will be soulful. And paraphrasing Ray Charles, I sense I am in touch with a mystery that “is like electricity … a force that can light up a room.”

So in the final analysis, my major felt yearning, the yearning to be settled, may not be what I really need. A routine life is often not interesting and therefore not soulful. A soulful life, a life crackling with that electricity that fills a room, will not always be comfortable. It may at times even be painful. The Hebrew people, after they were freed from Egypt, wandered forty years in the wilderness before they arrived at the promised land. And even when they formed a nation, they oftentimes suffered in their journey with Yahweh. Jesus certainly suffered and agonized during his lifetime. And the early Christians experienced great joys mixed with great sorrows in their journey with God.

So for now, the major insight of this life transition is that Living with Soul is never static. Life is always in flux. Sometimes the changes are rapid and seemingly violent, like raging rapids. At other times they are smooth and tranquil like a slowly flowing river. But change and growth are a part of life, a part of Living with Soul. My challenge in general, as well as in this transition, is to engage life in all of its interesting facets rather than seeking to control it out of fear. This is also what the major spiritual traditions imply when they encourage us to live in faith.