Adventure: Prologue

I will be honest with you: last week I had a hard time. A priest friend got a job and I was and am glad for that person. And I cried all day long. And last Saturday a seminary classmate was ordained a bishop. I'm glad for my classmate and still I had to force myself to write that I was happy. I was not happy for me.

I was and am still grieving for the closing of the church I was serving, and still recovering from staying on the job to the last day and beyond as details arose afterwards. Last week I was bitter about those priests who had found what I was calling soft landings, and I was angry that the church closed. I felt betrayed and abandoned, although I have no idea by whom. I only know that if I were to be asked what I was feeling I would have said, "Angry, abandoned, betrayed". I don't blame anyone. I also can't deny those were my feelings.

Last week I was still on vacation in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Mi Esposo was working at the track in Watkins Glen and we were staying in a garage apartment - a true man cave and very comfortable! - in Bath, NY. It was a lovely vacation. And last Monday I cried all day because I don't have a job, I've closed my second church in a row, and I am bereft.

On Friday we left Bath for home in Norwalk. We stopped at Roscoe, on Route 17, for lunch at the Roscoe Diner. Then we continued East on 17 for home. We were in separate cars and as I drove I thought what a privilege it was to be able to see the waterways I was passing and that ridge looming up in front me, green with trees, and the beauty of the day and I'm going home to an adventure.

What?!!! Where did that come from? Going home to an adventure? What was I thinking? Well, I wasn't thinking. It just came into my head that at home I would encounter an adventure.

Adventures are not always pleasant. Sometimes you have to cross raging rivers. You encounter high mountain ranges that block your way. You turn a corner and find the road is washed out. You find joy where you will yourself to find joy. "What a privilege to see that river in all its glory! Isn't that mountain beautiful? Well, guess we'll stop and smell the roses while we figure out how to get where we're going now that the road is washed away." That's not normally me.

And it's not normally me to say to myself, "I'm going home to an adventure". So I'm living with those words. And examining my days in the light of those words. And I have no answers. What I do have is things I've read during this first week home. Ideas I've had. A passion I've discovered. A new take on old traditions. I have no idea where these are going. I do know they are going somewhere. After all, I'm on an adventure.

What kind of adventure? I'll tell you. Every once in awhile Mi Esposo and I get in the car and decide to try and get lost. We've had some of the most wonderful drives through Connecticut and up the Hudson and other places trying to get lost, take roads we don't know where they're going, use no map. I'm on that kind of adventure.

And today I begin to share with you some of the snapshots, and maybe even newsreels (now there's an old fashioned concept!) of what I'm encountering on the way. This post is the first newsreel. And as you're finding out, it's a metaphorical newsreel. Sometimes there will be actual photos or videos. Today I begin to take you on this adventure with me. Buckle up your seatbelt!