Dear Friends in Christ—
Where are you going with your life?
Some of you may have heard me say that I am not goal-oriented; I am journey-oriented. At
first, I used the phrase as a joke to justify those times in my life when I lacked clear purpose.
But over time, I embraced the idea of being journey-oriented. I’d rather look out the window
than grab the wheel. I don’t pay attention to the where as much as the how.
On Sunday, a group of youth will leave for a pilgrimage to Glacier National Park. Sunday is not
the beginning of their journey. It began in 2019, as their Journey to Adulthood class first
gathered, and it has extended through the pandemic, through changes to time and destination.
This trip is a symbol of the learning they have been doing all along.
The point of this trip is not to see Glacier, as beautiful as the park is. The point is to journey—to
leave the familiar, to be open to awe, to discover new landscapes both without and within.
In their journey, these young people (and their faithful sponsors) give us a reminder of the
virtues of journeying. I encourage you to pray for them over the next week and a half. I also
encourage you to emulate them. You don’t have to set out to Montana. But you do have to
cast aside expectations and maybe even goals. You have to allow yourself to be changed by an
encounter with the divine.
Where are you going with your life? Perhaps a better question is how you are getting there,
and who are you going with?
Yours in Christ,
Anne+
Featured Image by Sander Jeurissen on Unsplash