The past many weeks brought opportunity for rest, reflection, dreaming, planning, and reconnection. I have not commented on discernment or what I'm doing, so I figured a post was due about where life is headed.
I plan to work for another year at Our Lady of the Valley in Caldwell before returning to seminary to continue formation toward the priesthood. I don't presume to be accepted back into the program, but I have kept in consistent touch with Fr. Caleb Vogel and Fr. Jerry Funke, the Vocations Directors, and with Bishop Peter Christensen, the shepherd of the Diocese of Boise, all of whom encouraged me to re-enter seminary when I am ready. I cannot put words to what held me back from continuing after my two years at Mount Angel, but I felt uneasy enough to break from the program. Peace is important, especially in praying about a commitment that encompasses all aspects of my identity and life, but I am realizing there will always be an unsatisfied longing within. Even if I become a fulfilled priest, even if I become a happy and healthy husband and father, even if I find satisfaction as a single person, my inmost yearning is not for any one of these primary vocations but for holiness, wholeness, and Heaven. Peace comes in the striving, not in the destination of our earthly pilgrimage.
This year I have been fortunate to indulge many interests, especially soccer, cooking, family, blogging, music, sports, and reading. Each piques my discernment meter on occasion -- how I could coach soccer and impact young lives through sports; how I could cook food to nourish people's bodies and souls; how I flirt with having my own wife and children as I play with my nieces and nephews; how I can use blogging as a vehicle for communication and community; how I see music inspire and lead people; how I can employ sports as an agent of gathering and agreement in an increasingly partisan and broken society; how reading a great book can change my outlook and thinking. Yet these thoughts are usually fleeting. They will remain interests, fantasies perhaps, but not the source of my strength and ultimate end.
My ultimate end is to love, to use my vocation to point myself and others to the only Love that satisfies. In the loneliness of having to make a decision, in the joy of having been gifted and chosen for a purpose, in the sharing of life with my beautiful family, I am grateful for this time of introspection and conversion. God is teaching me how to be an agent of change with my limitations and fears. I can love more; I can love better; I can love like Jesus.
If I follow the plan to return as a seminarian for the Diocese of Boise in fall of 2016, I pray that you walk alongside me because I need friends, mentors, challengers, truth-speakers, life-givers, role models, and advocates. I need you to be Christ for me because the meaning of our existence is found in the relationships we build both among each other and with the creator we hold in common.
I will try to post more often, but I won't promise much for now. Life gets busy, and blogging can take a backseat. Thanks for continuing to ask where we are headed, where I am headed, and showing you care with your prayers and encouragement. Incepto ne desistam! May I not shrink from my purpose!
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| A sunrise at Ascension Monastery in Jerome, Idaho, site of the recent BenedicTEEN Retreat I attended with four teens from Our Lady of the Valley. |
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| The desert has a picturesque hue at dawn. |
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| The road can be long but worth the journey. |
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| God's fidelity is evident in every sunrise. |
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| Lavender is in bloom at Ascension Monastery. |