Urgency

It's weird how certain things all seem to happen at the exact right moment. In my class last night (at my church), one of the speakers talked about a phone call she received at just the right moment and how, had she received the call at any other moment, she would have said no to the rector of my church's request for her to move all the way out here from North Carolina to serve in Pastoral Care here.

Last night's class came at the exact right moment for me. The whole course did, really. Yesterday, as I sat at the computer, trying to type up today's blog, my mind was consumed not with the usual obsessing over school and work (ha, "work") and band and all my usual day-to-day nonsense but with the idea that the moment was coming that my current routines would all end and I would have no choice but to leave. I always seem to be talking about and dreaming about all the things I'm going to change at the high school while working there, but yesterday, my mind was lost in the understanding that I would only be there a little while longer.

Class last night made me come to a realisation about something else we had talked about in a previous meeting: the sense of urgency that the church as a whole has. That day, we were talking about what we wanted to find in church, and I said I wanted to find peace and safety from the urgency of my every day life. At that time, I was overwhelmed; I needed refuge. It had been a horrible day, and so much going on had been stressing me out. Urgency was the last thing I wanted.

But I found the urgency last night. As we talked about those life-changing moments, about being called to begin a new chapter of our lives, I realised that the chapter I'm in right now will soon end. Suddenly, I began to feel urgent. I no longer have forever to take this theatre program and turn it into a force of nature; it has to be a force of nature now. Because who knows? I could be called to do something else at any moment, and I have to be ready.

I'm not ready. Not yet. But I have little time. Perhaps a year or two more, and then I will have to leave. I can feel that it is coming, and a new sense of urgency is filling inside me. I want to change this school, these kids, but I only have so much time to do it. Soon, my time will be up, and I will lose my chance to act.

I feel urgent. I am urgent.