Solving the Cube

I love solving my Rubik's Cube. Its discernible patterns help my brain to disengage after a long day. I just pulled it from my bag on the train home, and made some new acquaintances in Betsy, Jim, and Jay. Betsy saw the cube and asked if I really knew how to solve it, so from Fenway to Brookline Village, I did just that.

I think my brain enjoys the cube and its patterns simply because, by now, I know how it works. I know what to do to solve it. After a long day of contemplating rites and ritual, God, grace and compassion, and ecclesiology, the cube is respite. There is no deep consideration required. Don't get me wrong, I am loving seminary and thriving on these deep discussions, but if you only live, eat, and breathe one thing, you'll soon grow less find of it. So I solve the Rubik's cube.

Tomorrow is my last day of classes for my second year of seminary. I cannot, cannot, cannot believe it's come and gone so quickly. Some days I feel like a jumbled up cube... mismatched colors, portions of me turning one direction while other pieces of my entity are firmly grounded. Some days I feel partially solved; I'm still a bit of a mess but I have the foundation to keep growing. And once in a great while, I really feel put together. I think feeling put together is a misnomer, I don't think we ever feel 100% great or perfect about everything in our lives, but maybe being put together is merely knowing how to handle the mayhem. How do we respond to the jumbled mess before us?

What I've learned in the last two years is immense, both in quantity and in gravity. Serious discussions on life and death issues, relationships, the nature of humanity, social constructs and systems theories, how to engage healthily with people wielding painful weaponry, and concerns of pastoral self-care and boundaries. I've befriended people who have been married, divorced, birthed and parented children, buried parents, honored parents and former mentors, flirted, disagreed, preached, laughed, cried, and loved people from afar, and we've done it all while trying to live authentic diverse lives as people of faith.

I wouldn't trade these experiences for they are grounding me and serve as the foundational experiences for what I will do for the rest of my life. Throughout life we will all at times be messed up patterns of a Rubik's cube, and sometimes we'll have it all "together." And when we're a mess, the beauty of the solved puzzle is underneath. It's there. We just have to trust and continue seeking.