the safe, the brave -- sharing today with ed cyzewski
/I had an unexpected joy this weekend, when Ed wrote and asked if I could contribute something about the struggle of following Christ, how it can surprise us. Change us. Here, I share. My right heel blisters against the new boot. Walking upon the cold, wet sand of the English shoreline, I consider taking the boots off, letting feet sink deep into the grains, but there’s still two or three miles of this walk to be had and soon we’ll cut across the stone way, up into the bramble patches and the highland.
I’m turning over the question, rattled loose the night before when he asked me kindly, offhand, where I planned to go after my year of masters work at St. Andrews. I had provided the expected answer, the answer that had made the most sense since the start of summer, since sitting on the back of the golf cart with the woman I admired so deeply, dreaming of a second masters degree and my first academic book. But I had conceded to him that there was more to the story, the conversation that intersected my certainty only the week before I packed up my life, got on the plane, and moved to the United Kingdom. I conceded that I was no longer so sure, that there was a second option, a possibility, something that on its surface looked significantly less glamorous, perhaps less significant, perhaps less important.
Yet it stuck like a burr in my heart. It clung. It had pinched deep.
Maybe the safe thing is the brave thing.
