Not all those who wander are lost.

Richard Foster writes about the gift of tears... and from what I remember it had something to do with suffering like Christ or something, which I don't take much stock in... but I do enjoy crying. Usually.
This morning, I am crying because it just hit me that 98% of my friends from BW graduated yesterday. So many people from the department are now gone... off to the Adventure that is Life After College. New chapters. Heck, new books are being started. I am so happy for them. But I can't help but wonder what things will be like without them next year... how empty it might seem. How friend-less I will be. It breaks my heart! And while I would never wish to hold them back from anything, I only want to spend more time with them... Learning from them. Laughing with them. Growing together.

I had coffee with an old friend today and while we caught each other up on our lives, I said that if I had felt the way I do right now, a year ago.... I would be taking time off from BW. Not because many of my friends are gone... but because I hit this wall a while ago, a wall I hit frequently. This wall... this wall is doubt. I am unsure of what I want to do, where I want to go... why am I here? It is always interesting to hear what people think of you....what they think you can and cannot do. I feel like Rory from the GIlmore Girls when Mitchum Huntzberger, her boyfriend's father, Newspaper Hot-Shot, and Boss, tells her she is not cut out to be a jounalist... except I want to be an interfaith minister? And I might not be cut out for it...

So what do I do? What do I think? My first thought is "Bakery." Bakery slowly turns into "Doughnut Shop." Which turns into "Doughnut shop/drive-in theatre fusion." Or, hell, why did I ever give up on journalism? Maybe I really will check out anthropology. Or... do I want to be that cool English teacher I've dreamt about being for years?

Truth is... I don't know what I want to do and I haven't. There are many possibilities I like to think about a lot... but I am so unsure of my faith it seems relatively silly to try and be a minister of any sort. Especially when your "mentor" doesn't think you can do it. And doesn't tell you? I am interested in so many things, and open to doing whatever seems best at the time. I am not direct. I don't have a plan set in stone. I wander. There are very few things I think are absolute (Only Siths deal in absolutes right? And I am so NOT a Sith)... in regards to anything. I like things bendy... flexible. Think of sedimentary rock if you will, kinda together, a little held together, but slightly off...a little unpredictable. That's me.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king