Our apartment next door is empty. Our neighbors, with whom we shared both a wall and two years of life together in close community, have graduated and moved on. We packed up their home into the moving truck, gave our hugs and waved them good-bye. It wasn't until a few hours later I realized they weren't just going on vacation for the summer. They were gone and not coming back. And the reality is I might not see them again this side of eternity.
Seminary is a microcosm of life. New life. We've seen our second child born here and spend three weeks in the ICU. We watched other little lives come into the world (at least ten and counting), say their first words and take their first steps. Death. Not only did I say good-bye to our neighbors on the sidewalk in front of our apartment, I also prayed there on a cell phone with my grandmother on the other end the day prior to her death. I took a hiatus from Hebrew to drive home and say our final good-byes. Relationships here form with the understanding that there will inevitably be a good-bye. There's no avoiding the fact that we will all very soon leave this place.
So do you take the risk and invest in relationships which will sooner rather than later end? Seminary has a way of reminding me of the temporal nature of life. We are going to leave this world. We are going to have to say good-bye. But God asks us to make the most of our days. To invest in relationship. To feel the sting of good-byes knowing that a reunion of epic proportions awaits. Being less afraid of the good-bye and more interested in the God whose glorious presence becomes our inheritance and reality.
Thank you, seminary, for teaching me a whole lot about life.
