Blog

Hope

More than anything I am finding time to learn about myself. If that is what hope is than I am full with it to overflowing.
I arrived in Erie as a stranger entering mystery. The Philippians scripture about Jesus emptying himself of divinity spoke to my situation. I was certainly not divine in any sense, yet I did know what it was like to be comfortable and connected. I find myself in the midst of a quest at an age when I might rather be settled. Yet I will have to say I am learning. I am learning that I am very capable of being able to meet my own needs, to find my way around Erie, to find resources and supports that can help me feel more alive, to find people to make social connections with and above finding a church that was able to fill my life with a measure of peace and spiritual connection.

In the meantime my wife has been in Kansas City while I get more and more acclimated to Erie. She is the person who is from Erie and yet she has been cleaning up our town house. It has been over three weeks now. It is very difficult to be apart from her, knowing that the reason for my decision to go to Erie was in large part to meet her need of being with family.

It has been a waiting and learning game. I shoot baskets, which is a way to see for myself what it means to miss the mark and be okay with that. I have a temp job. I worked with a young person to get 7000 pounds of stuff upstairs. I am finding out I am stronger than I thought and more resourceful too. I am learning about hope. It has something to do with embracing a mystery, knowing that God is never far away. It is the evidence of things not seen. So I enter the mystery of entering emptiness, so that I might know what it means to be filled; with God's Spirit, with God's grace and beauty in a place called Erie. There is no more a sense of Eeriness only the knowledge of God that casts out fear.
Welcome to HOPE.