Here I Go...

Hillary and I are leaving town the day after tomorrow! I’m amazed by how little real preparation this has required. I suppose this is what happens after giving away most of one’s belongings.

Fall is in full force here in Albuquerque, so much so that I wonder if I’ll have missed it when I get to the South East (of course, fall doesn’t start until December in Atlanta).

Things we have done to prepare for departure:

Gone to see the Sand Hill Cranes land in San Antonio, NM (a sight for sure!)

Knit and knit and knit and knit

Watched 7/8 Harry potter movies… 5 of them in one day (no, I am not kidding and no I never ever want to do that again).

made birthday presents for a special birthday girl (no, not me) who will be THREE YEARS OLD in just over a week! (I suppose this counts as “…and knit and knit”)

Spent time with friends we’ll miss

Watched fall colors

all the cotton woods are yellow now… (tree outside our bedroom)

and this morning I hiked one of the canyons around the Sandia Mountain

It had snowed!

Tomorrow, the priest we have been living with for the past couple of months will do a mass for us at Trinity House and we’ll have a goodbye party.

I’m so eager to start heading east again. Tired as I am of moving and being uprooted and unstable, I find myself with new energy for this trip. It feels like we’re moving in a good direction and pursuing something life-giving.

Hillary found a website called Zero Tuition College, an online community of unschooling adults. She has been inspired to give a slightly more formal structure to the knowledge/education she has been pursuing for years. You can follow that on her new blog The Unschooled Seminarian. I’m really excited for both of us, as we pursue education in a way that makes sense for us.

Chelsea shared with me a sermon that a classmate of hers had written on advent. I wish I could share it here, but I don’t have the author’s permission to do so. The sermon was about advent from the view of the pregnant woman. Those of us who think of Advent, might think of it as expectant waiting for family time or presents or for the holida-infused consumerism to stop (FINALLY). Advent for Mary was expectant waiting of new life, new creation. Over nine months, she watched her body change, her belly swell, her breasts grow heavy. By December, she was tired, her feet were swollen, but she joyfully awaited the birth of her baby, her miracle, our messiah. Of course, birth is not just transition for the baby, but for the mother as well. Her body changed, her mind changes and then her life changes forever. How do we await God’s gifts? Do we focus on our swollen feet and curse our fatigue? Or do we rejoice, knowing that God is present in our life? Do we sit, quietly, and wait, feeling the stirring inside our bodies? Do we submit ourselves to the challenge and often the discomfort of transition, of birth?

This past year and the coming months feel very pregnant. I am learning so much, growing so much and I find myself so aware of the Divine in my life.