I have encountered a certain awkwardness of late when asked what I do. When you lose the job you have been doing for a long time you realize more fully how you wrap a huge part of your identity in the job. The embarrassment of saying that you no longer do that thing needs to find some place to rest. Still working on that.
Thomas Merton is helpful in this regard. Listen to this. “If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” Where my true identity lies is of course far more complex and layered, also tied into vocation; my true self is hidden with my identity with Jesus.
For the next two weeks though, I will be away from the blog, doing something that I love to do, that is part of what I do and who I am. Jenny and I are going to Honduras for two weeks with Judith P. and six SCS high school students to visit our sister school in Choluteca, Honduras as well as experience life in Central America in the richest way we can, with a local who loves this little country and calls it home. We are pretty blessed to be part of this experience.