Friday Five~Fork in the road

If you read the snippet from the Robert Frost poem in my header, you'll know that this is a theme I've thought about before. Here are 5 "fork in the road events" from my life. Some of my forks are more literal than others...

1. I dated the same guy all through junior and senior years in high school. We were in love, and me being an introvert, I focused all my energy on him. Plus things at home were a mes, so being with him was a relief from that. When we graduated he went off to the Navy and I stayed behind, living at home and attending the local college because I couldn't afford to go away. For the first six months I was MISERABLE. All my high school friends were off at college except one, and she got married. Since I wasn't living on campus it was hard to feel involved at school. Then things shifted. I got a job at the public library. I made some friends. I realized how much I loved school. I could cope. But suddenly HE was unhappy. After boot camp he wasn't so busy and he was lonely. So he decided that we should get married right away (we were all of 18). So here's the fork in the road--get married or stay in school and wait? You all know which decision I made, and I have to say that I didn't hesitate very long. But I've often wondered how my life would've been different if I had not married so young. If I'd done my painful finally-growing-up before I had kids instead of after, if I'd found a career then instead of 12 years later....well, it's immaterial now, but I've wondered. (Note to offspring who read this blog: I DO NOT regret getting you as a result of this decision!)

2. When we moved to SC we had two small children and I wanted to bring them up in church. So I determined to make a list of all the Episcopal churches in the ares and visit each one of them to find the best fit (and there were lots to choose from). Before I got very far in my list making, I went one day to the air force base to buy groceries, and coming home, I got lost. I knew I had missed a turn but I was going down this long, straight road with nowhere to turn around, so I just kept going. After what felt like miles and miles (it really wasn't) I came to a neighborhood and I turned in to turn around. When I was ready to pull back onto the main road I saw a sign in front of me that said, "Future Home of St. Somebody's Episcopal Church" with contact information which I quickly jotted down. I called the number when I got home and met a very friendly person who invited us to come to the high school where, as a new church plant, they were meeting. We did and we loved it, and we never looked back. So taking this very literal fork in the road turned out to have a huge impact on my life. It was in this church that I found my adult faith, and the first inklings of what led me to where I am now. It was here that I met my best friend for years, and it was here that I found a community that loved and supported me when I went through some major life changes.

3. When I went back to college 12 years after graduating from high school, I thought I would become a kindergarten teacher. I loved kids, I had worked in a preschool, and I knew that I would be able to get a job. So I enrolled in early ed class along with my core requirements, and off I went. The only problem was that I loved my theoretical classes so much more than my applied classes. Methods and materials? Yeah I could do it, but I began to wonder how it would go for the long haul. And I did really well in all my classes, and some of my profs began to ask me if I'd ever thought about going to grad school. Yikes. At this point I was a single mom with three kids under 10. And I needed a job. How could I even consider such a thing? But over the next year or so, things began to fall into place, and I began to see how it might happen--and it did! Maybe I would've been a good kindergarten teacher if it hadn't worked out the way it did, but my life would've been much different.

4. In a way, this is a repeat of #2. When we moved to Vermont we hadn't been going to church for a while (a whole 'nother long story) and I realized I wanted the Kid to have that experience. And NSLS was a bit interested, too. I dragged my feet for a long while, again thinking to check out several local churches. Finally one year on Christmas Eve I decided I really, really wanted to go to church, so we went off to the closest church. It was a lovely service, and the priest had a very intriguing southern accent. It took me another six months to go back, and when I did that priest wasn't there (turns out he was on vacation) but there was a lovely young woman priest--the first time I'd ever met a woman priest, even though women had been ordained for a while. She preached a powerful sermon that was just what I needed to hear. The next week the priest with the southern accent was back and he preached a powerful sermon that was just what I needed to hear. Any thoughts of checking out another church left, and I became a regular church geek again....and see where that led me?

5. This one is probably obvious if you've been following the story :) After a while I got this nagging sense that I was supposed to do something different with my life, that coming back to church was pointing me to something else. Was I called to be a priest? Really? And would that call be affirmed by my community? And did I really want to give up my newly earned tenure at a place I really like? Well, yes, and yes, and yes, so it seems.

I am, as some of you know, at a fork in the road right now, and I know not where it will lead. Lately I've been praying this prayer from Thomas Merton:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"