Rector’s Ramblings – August 8, 2024

The packing has begun. The unpacking will not start for some time. The packing I refer to is the mountain of items that have been carefully cataloged and sorted in and under our dining room table—the college dorm items! They are a physical reminder that significant change is coming to our family in less than a week. The packing for that significant change is something we can prepare for, map out, and get assistance with from Amazon deliveries. Amazon doesn’t have anything to help us prepare for the intangible aspects of what is about to happen. We don’t fully understand it yet, and I’m aware that we won’t unpack its full effect for quite some time after the college bins and bags are hauled to Tennessee and unpacked. 

I have heard from parents throughout my ministry about what an emotional transition it is when kids move out to go to college. Yes, it’s joyful and exciting; there is much to celebrate. And it is a time of genuine grief, too, as parents come to terms with the reality that things won’t ever be the same again. In that brief window of ministry, before I had a child at home, I remember the tearful Sunday morning hugs shared between two mothers of first-year college students. It caught me off guard. I was still a twenty-something and hadn’t considered the big deal that transition could be.

Not all college or post-high school partings are equally challenging. Let’s face it. Sometimes, parents want a break from a difficult relationship with their teenager. Sometimes, the teenager can’t wait to get out of the house. Those realities can lessen the emotional weight of such changes, but even then, it’s still the same process on some level. Whether you send a child off to the military, away to school somewhere, or simply move them out to their own apartment, the process is complex and new. Even parents who aren’t overly controlling must face the fear of having little to no control over what will happen to a child they likely still think of as a much smaller human being. Parents are biologically hardwired to care for their offspring, and moving away from home changes how we respond to that innate calling. For example, one of my biggest worries is that I won’t be able to fix a car that breaks down or needs some kind of repair when that car is eight hours away. That role of fixer is one of the manifestations of my fatherhood that will have to be relaxed!

While this transition process is unique in terms of the events we experience in life, it is also not uncommon. Life changes are common. We might even say life is change. In all sorts of ways, we operate with ideas, plans, hopes, dreams, and a sense of what the future might look like. Whenever something interrupts that process, it causes us to recenter and establish a new trajectory for hopes and dreams. For little things, that adjustment to a new outcome is easy, like when you were dreaming of the salad you were going to get at the restaurant where you are meeting a friend, and then you find out the restaurant is closed for renovations. Not a big deal. You find a new restaurant to go to and usually find something on the menu you will enjoy. When you have your heart set on a retirement goal that might have meant living in a particular place or taking a specific trip and then the market tanks, having to readjust years of dreams can be a bit harder to manage.

For sure, sending kids out into the world is located at a different place on that spectrum for each of us. The first wave of emotions will likely be the biggest for all involved. Soon, however, new visions of what lies ahead will take shape, and the excitement of opportunity and growth will work from both ends of the relationship. However, that first wave is proving to be a big one. The closest comparisons I have were the first day of kindergarten and the first time the new driver took off alone. In both moments, it came down to trust in God’s goodness and the rational reminder that this is what life is all about. Even now, I keep reminding myself that this little person (no matter how big she may be now!) will be ok and that God is going with her. 

That’s all any of us really needs to know whenever we find ourselves charting a new course. The prayer I like to use when someone leaves our community reminds us that while new roads are new to us, God has been that way before. I also know many of you have been that way, too. It’s a road all parents take at some point; now it’s our turn. We’ll pack up the cars, unload them, and then get about the work of unpacking what comes next. It is a blessing that our parting will be hard at first; it’s a sign of the closeness of our relationship. I know it will be hard, and I know it will be fine, too. That first wave is coming, though, either way. 

 

Tom+

 

This prayer, attributed to St. Brendan, is one of profound trust in God. Brendan launches out into deep waters, in his fragile boat, leaving his homeland to journey to foreign lands.

 

Beyond these shores 

Into the darkness 

Beyond these shores 

This boat may sail 

And if this is the way 

Then  will be a path across this sea. 

And if I sail beyond the farthest ocean 

Or lose myself in the depths below 

Wherever I may go 

Your love surrounds me 

For You have been before 

Beyond these shores. 

Amen.