Nearing a chapter’s end.

Punting on the River Cam near Queen's College

On Sunday morning, I walked to St. Bene’t’s for Sunday worship as has become my custom. The changes were ringing out from the various churches as I described in one of my early sabbatical blog posts. It was warm and sunny – a perfect spring morning. But a but a sadness crept in as I suddenly realized that this would be my last Sunday morning walk into Cambridge for worship during my sabbatical. This would be my last Sunday worshiping with the community of St. Bene’t’s that I had adopted as my own for my brief stay. I have another weekend, but I will be in London for meetings of the Ecclesiastical Law Society. Term will end later the week following and must then take my leave.

In some ways, it’s a metaphor for life. When planning this sabbatical, there were so many things I had planned to do and to accomplish. I set out to make a study of contextual theological education and assess some implications for the way we undertake formation for ministry within the Episcopal Church in Central Pennsylvania. I set out to make pilgrimage to key sights in the Anglican story that provides the foundation for the religious and cultural contours of the Church in which I serve and that I have come to love. I set out to explore elements of the broad traditions of the Church of England from both its catholic and its evangelical incarnations. I set out to ….

Yes. When I set it all to writing, it amounts to much more than could possibly be accomplished in the eight weeks allotted for my time at Ridley Hall. However, I must say that despite my overly ambitious agenda (quite characteristic), quite a lot was experienced and discovered along the way. I shared some of my ruminations through the posts of this blog (and will continue to do so) but realize that so many of the experiences, so much of the knowledge is still in the form of genuinely “raw data” that needs to be processed.

For the more technical theology geeks out there, my theological methodology over the years has consistently followed the patterns set out by Bernard Lonergan, introduced to me by one of my seminary professors, Fr. Peter Drilling. In his theological method, Lonergan notes that the first step is “Experience” – or the phase where we gather data on many levels. Our minds begin the process of formulating insights from this raw data (I won’t go into the whole process here!) that often results in an “Aha! Moment,” or “insight” as things coalesce around a central kernel of truth. The challenge for the theologian (in this case, me) is then to discover ways to communicate that reality to others – and this, in turn, becomes the data I and others will use to move the whole process of discovery forward. This is the work on ongoing conversion – of continuing change about the way we think of and view the world - and God.

So, with less than two weeks remaining at Ridley Hall, I begin the process of closing another chapter of ministry – a chapter of pilgrimage and of discovery. The journey is not yet over, to be sure, and there is more to come. But it will be a new chapter – something different from what has come before – and that, too, is a metaphor for life.