Happy New Year

I spent an astonishing proportion of my life in school... all the way through high school & college, then graduate school, then teaching at the college level for lot of years. Now, of course, I'm in 3rd grade -- OK, my son's in 3rd grade, but since I am such an active participant in the homework I'm really hoping to get credit for the year.

So in a lot of ways, the academic calendar strikes more of a chord in me than the one hanging on the fridge. It's only reinforced by the church calendar; even though we have church all year round, there's certainly a sense that a certain portion of the church family, let's say, is on vacation for the summer months, and then we restart in September.

It also represents a different kind of new beginning; it was in September, a number of years ago, that I made one of my first steps toward applying the faith I said I had toward my actual, you know, life.

My life at the time: junior in college, but since I had lived at home for the first 2 years of community college, setting out on my own for the first time -- a good time, if not a bit tardy, to really mull over what my own values were. Also, and of course this is pivotal to the story, I had a girlfriend.

She was also in college in another state, but we'd been dating for over a year and it felt pretty solid. We had had the boat rocked a few times, but overall it seemed reasonably happy.

When I got to school, it was made clear to me in a number of ways that faith was not something we took out of the drawer on Sunday morning and then returned to its cotton-batting-lined box once the service was over. We had prayer before classes, and chapel services 4 times a week. There were special speaker series, and even the entertainment was faith-based.

I have to admit that, as much as September prompts this look back, I was also prompted by my recent music-recording efforts. I was recording one of my favorite old Christian artists, De Garmo & Key, when I realized I was missing an album: "No Turning Back", which was recorded on the same tour they were on when I saw them that September.

It was the sort of raw, hard-charging faith message they presented (and rocked out with), along with a few pointed comments by one of those visiting speakers, that made me think back over a few things in my life. Such as this: why didn't my girlfriend & I ever discuss faith matters?

We had spent a lot of time together -- in fact, we worked together that summer; we'd had innumerable phone calls and dozens of long, long letters. And while it's easy for me to sit here and note that she didn't talk about faith, I also had to realize that I hadn't either.

This isn't a TV movie, it's a slice of my past... but nevertheless you probably know how the next scene goes already. But honestly, I guess I hadn't seen enough movies at that point, because I went into it with a sense of excitement. I wrote her a long impassioned letter about what I was learning and feeling, how I was changing, and I invited her to tell me about her faith experience. I promise you that what I was expecting was to open up a whole new level of communication and closeness...

... but somehow that's not what I got. I've long since lost track of the letter I got, so there's a chance I'm not portraying it accurately, but here's what I remember: she felt like I was accusing her of not being spiritual enough, and she told me that her faith was too personal to her to discuss.

Well, of course I backed & filled, and tried to repair the damage... but what I didn't understand was that I hadn't caused a breach, I'd merely revealed one I didn't see before. We struggled on till Thanksgiving break, keeping in touch and trying to find common ground, but I think we both knew that it was over. When we both got home, I went to her house to talk to her, and before I left we broke up.

I guess 'broke up' isn't quite the right term; we really acknowledged to each other that we were already moving in opposite directions, and affirmed the wisdom of continuing that way. When I left, she told me she was sure we'd get back together someday, and I did get a couple letters from her in ensuing months, but it really was over.

I can't honestly say I learned the lesson all the way that first time, but I'm thankful that our God of second chances gave me enough opportunities so I could finally get it right.