Aqua.

I break my silence with something that I wrote a few months ago. What you see below is a portion of a talk that I gave for my school's chapel, which took place on February 29 of this year. I gave it with my friend Adam and one of our mutual professors/mentors, Aron. We were talking about living in an odd in-between place, and the different ways this manifests itself in each of our lives. It made sense to talk about it then, because we were going through the waiting in-betweenness of lent, and because it fell on leap day, an odd, in-between day in and of itself. This is the portion I wrote about myself and my own experiences, partly in an effort to communicate them with other people, and partly to try to sort through them myself. I'm still sorting through all of this, but I thought, before I move on to talking about other kinds of aftermath, I should begin again with this. I hope it doesn't seem too disjointed, it was part of something bigger at the time, and in many ways, is still. So without further ado...

It’s hard to be here, because I wish I were there.Those of you who have talked to me for more than thirty seconds in the past few weeks already know: I lived in New Zealand last semester. It was a beautiful coastal town on the South Island of the country called Kaikoura, bounded on one side by a range of low peaks, and on the other by the Pacific Ocean. I spent my mornings learning about, among other things, two of my favorites, namely, ecology and environmental literature; spent my afternoons biking somewhere between forest and sea or sliding into tide pools; and my evenings watching the sun set behind the mountains and making up constellations for the unfamiliar stars of the southern hemisphere. I lived intentionally, with 19 other students, in an old convent in the foothills of Mt. Fyffe. I embedded myself into the culture as much as I could, and was gradually all but adopted by a local family in town. I lived in New Zealand last semester. In some ways I am there still.

Someone pointed out to me a few days ago that in all my writing about my time in New Zealand, I always called the convent home. Never once did I qualify it – home for now, home away from home, New Zealand home. It was simply home. From the very beginning. I tried to fit myself into the life there and found that I had a place. Coming back was a bit of a shock, as you can well imagine. Physically, I adjusted quickly enough, despite the drastic time change, but in other ways, I don’t know that I ever will. I had never been homesick before I came back from New Zealand. Now it seems difficult to stop feeling that way.  “This slight momentary affliction is preparing us for a weight of glory beyond all measure. . . . We look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen.”

I want to be there, but it’s good to be here. New Zealand was an incredibly formative place. But it was not my first, nor my only formative place. The time that I had in New Zealand was only possible because of the three years I first spent here at Trinity. I came to college fresh out of what can most kindly be described as an intensely bitter experience of high school, and if my focus and perspective and individualism had not been shifted by the community at Trinity, I would have arrived in Kaikoura completely unprepared for what I found. Trinity was the first place in which I felt truly engaged. I could explore. I was, and am, challenged to have the courage to change my mind. I found myself intellectually intimidated by people, and loving it. Trinity is the first place that I remember that doesn’t just feel like a jumping off point on the way to something else. I knew it almost as soon as I arrived: this is where I fit. Even in the inevitable shifting of a college campus, I found a sense of permanence here. I found somewhere I didn’t want to leave. Is it odd, then, that even as I stand before you I am plotting my return to New Zealand? That even as I revel in my final semester here, I long to take up my place in that far green country? “Whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please the Lord.”

Somehow, I'm already there, even while I'm here. I am at Trinity, and I love being here. But I also wish I were there, and I know I can’t stay away. So for now, I am somewhere in between.  I’m constantly reminded of something C.S. Lewis wrote at me once, that my memories and impressions after an event continue to add to it, and I will only know its full character as I lie down to die. Lately I’ve been suspecting that it works the other way also. That the anticipation of an experience or act is just as much a part of it as the thing itself. Maybe the joy that I have in remembering New Zealand is also a pointer forward, toward something else, something more complete. Something new. So for now I can live with this tension as intention, this joyful longing as faithful expectation. “If anyone is in Christ -- new creation! . . . Everything has already become new!”