Walking forward singing...

My travels take me to Bemidji, Minnesota today for an all class reunion of members of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Bemidji State University.

In the college scene of the 80's , IV, as we called it, was part shelter, part club, part dating service, and part home for Evangelical Christians (mostly) on campus. It was sort of our frat. There were other campus ministries, of course, but in IV there was a distinct shortage of tweedy, elbow patch, fading 60's hipster type ministers and that made it special. Praise songs, Bible study, sharing, and then out from the safe harbor to the bumpy ocean of college.

I suspect that my wife and I may be the only Eastern Orthodox Christians there, although I am prepared to be surprised. We crop up in some very unusual places these days. But my gut tells me we will be quite alone and that's okay. It was worth the journey, every step.

So many times people who come in to Orthodoxy feel they have to throw some level of trash back at wherever it was they came. Perhaps they feel a need to decisively break with the past. Maybe they feel that somehow its required. It could be they really are angry and feel deceived and want some sort of payback. And some really have been ostracized by thier families and friends and have trouble expressing that pain.

I just don't feel that way. Everything I went through was for this time and place and none of it is to be rejected. It was important for me to have been where I was so that I could be in Orthodoxy as I am. Twenty years ago wasn't the right time but seven years ago was. It's all in higher hands than mine.

And someone once gave me some very good advice which I remember to this day. Come in to Orthodoxy walking forward and singing and not walking backward and shouting.

Behold I am making all things new...