The weather was crazy today. Raining buckets. I literally hydroplaned, spun a 180, head-on into incoming traffic and across three lanes. There were about five oncoming cars that missed me by inches and parted like the red sea. It was kind of traumatic. I experienced that slow motion, tunnel vision that happens when you panic. After I stopped skidding all I could say was, “Thank you, Jesus.” I’m glad I got out without a scratch. What a crazy day.

There are about a million essays I could write about being done with college. All of them would sound contrived and boring, probably. There’s something about wistfulness that makes everything you write sound cliché. I think I’m doing it right now. Also, essays kind of suck. But here’s what I was thinking of as the semester ended sans pomp or circumstance and I quietly graduated from Pacific and slipped into adult life: postgrad is like the Odyssey. Yes. Homer. That guy. Odysseus was this guy with the brains. Back in the DAY. He goes and tricks all the Trojans into letting a giant horse in their stronghold (stupid) and BAM - pillaged and burned to the ground. He basically thinks he’s the man. But then Odysseus gets a little prideful. He’s got the magna cum laude & all his mates to sail home in victory with. Then trouble hits. Because the journey isn’t over. He thought it was, but it wasn’t. The Odyssey years are just beginning. Monsters with 7 heads and giant whirlpools and sirens, oh my! And get it? They’re metaphorical for life’s challenges. Except in my case it’s like: student loans, job applications, significant others (or lack thereof), oh my! Homer saw that all of humanity is always trying to get back to some kind of home that maybe doesn’t even really exist in this world (but, I would argue, in the next) and the journey there is fraught with the scariest monsters you ever saw. Probably why they still make English teachers like me teach the Odyssey to ninth graders. There’s something about the hero’s journey that’s pretty universal. There’s this elusive home we’re all trying to get back to. It’s what we were made for. And, I’m finding, this longing for “home” doesn’t go away with a Bachelor’s degree. It’s funny. I think I’m realizing that part of me thought it would. Like things would just become, I don’t know - easier? More fulfilling? Fun? Grown-up? But there’s something insatiable about being a human being. Of course now would be the perfect time to throw in some good old-fashioned C.S. Lewis wisdom: If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. So here’s the part where I’m glad that life isn’t an epic poem. I like that I’m not the hero of my journey - or rather, I like that I’m starting to learn that I’m not. Looking at the odyssey years ahead, the period where it’s very likely things won’t go according to plan, I have hope. Here’s why: there is an author who already wrote my story and he knows it from beginning to end. It’s a small little plotline - a subplot of a subplot but it’s part of the most glorious story in the universe.  And Jesus is the hero. Right? So even if I’m stuck in the doldrums for a moment, Jesus is my light, anchor, and morning star. See what I did there with that nautical reference? So anyways, not having a plan or a course or a map is kind of exciting. I’ve been really pointed to Jesus by some close friends over the last few weeks. It’s amazing how seeking him and not the plan just makes the whole journey so much better. I’m going to miss college, but I’m excited for right now.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 ESV

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”Isaiah 43:18-19 (KJV)

 a poem

a soft red neon glow

lights the street

where café tables stand sentry

and the click of high heels on pavement

soft laughs

and the last strains of a torch song

from the corner jazz club

are the tune 

for dancers under a blue moon

dip and twirl

the coffee shop girl shakes her head

stacking chairs

the sudden wail of a siren

scatters lovers and leaves

a poem

I walked along a silent street

A wet and somber lane

The shops were closed

I chanced to meet

A cello’s nervous strain.

Among the litter and the leaves

A beat up leather case

A man who listens and believes

With lines upon his face.

He played his orchestrations 

With a solemn, eager brow

And only beggars, theives, and I

do live to tell it now.