Walking Down Old Roads...

I enjoy the feeling of nostalgia every time I look back at the past. I believe that who we are and where we are heading now is shaped by the experiences that God has allowed us to go through. There is this inexpressible feeling of fond appreciation for the experiences that I have gone through when I sift through these memories. It makes me regret that I did not begin writing a journal much sooner. I rue the loss of wonderful, key moments in my life due to the passage of time and unreliable memories. As Thomas Merton wrote in his book ‘The New Seeds of Contemplation’:-

Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.

Today I decided to look back at some of the committee e-mails which I chose not to delete from my inbox. Along with other notes of encouragement from each other, they are the last shred of physical evidence that I was ever in the CF committee. I’m glad I saved some of them, so that they can serve as old signposts and reminders of the things we went through together as a committee. What touched me the most was the way God brought us together not just as a group of people working together, but as a community. Yes, there were conflicts; there were misunderstandings. Yet, now when I look back at the e-mails, I can feel a sense of belonging in the words that we used. The words express a relationship that goes far beyond simply that of a committee. They are words that speak of friendship, of brotherhood, and of a people bonded together by one mission.

As I approached the final few e-mails that we received from one another, I couldn’t help but be brought back to those beautiful moments when we realized that those would be the last mails we were sending to one another as the committee. It was a time of separation and transition, when some of us would be leaving while the rest would remain. There were also new committee members coming in to the group. New life was born. It was a time of sadness and pain for the separation that we would experience, yet there is joy for the new life in the committee.