The Start of the Journey (or maybe the middle?)

If you are reading this, then you probably know that I am in the middle of packing up my house and getting ready to move half-way across this vast country.  Why would I do something like this?  I have come to the conclusion that I must be crazy.  Or at least a little bit off-kilter.  Because, 15 years after finishing school, I am about to go back again.

When I graduated from university, I was so glad to be done.  I was excited to enter my chosen profession of physiotherapy.  I had a job lined up in Thunder Bay, I passed the Physiotherapy National Exam, and I was set to go.

The years passed.  I traveled.  Lots.  I lived in Tanzania for 3 years working as a physiotherapist in a rural mission hospital.  I volunteered in different contexts.  I spent a total of 5 years on the executive of the local district of the Ontario Physiotherapy Association.  Music is a fun hobby.  I bought a house 7 years ago and have enjoyed learning how to garden in this climate.

But then, maybe about 5 years ago, I started feeling little nudges that maybe this wasn't going to be where I was going to stay.  And so after 5 or 6 years of informal, internal discernment and a year of formal discernment, I am headed to seminary.  I will be studying for my Master of Divinity, and if all goes well, in 4 years, give-or-take, I will be ordained as a minister in The United Church of Canada.

Several people have told me that they want an easy way to keep up with me, and what I am doing, and what I am learning; and so I have decided to start this blog as a way to keep in touch with friends and family.  My goal is to update it every week or so.

And so my Next Great Adventure is about to begin!  Let me buckle my seatbelt and hang on for the ride.  I was planning to put a picture of a road in here - or maybe a road with a fork in it ("I took the road less traveled" etc.).  But that isn't my preferred means of transportation, so instead I will finish off with this picture.  Something to remind me of my heart's home here in north-western Ontario even when I am living half a continent away; as well as a reminder of the journey that we all take through this wild and crazy life.  What will be waiting on the other side of the bend in the river?