Beginnings have been on my mind lately. It’s fall and another school year has begun. New opportunities, new experiences, often times fresh slates. Although for many people, new adventures can be scary, for others it’s refreshing, a washing over, a new creation. I think about relationships, jobs, homes, friends, etc. Whether we desire something new or not, it’s often a part of life, or more to the point, it is life: The Beginning.
What are you beginning?
My faith is about beginnings, and in reciprocation, my beginnings are about faith. There are three beginnings I am currently experiencing: A new beginning, a returned beginning and an old beginning.
New beginnings are those we have never experienced. It might be a new job, a new career, a new place to live, a new relationship. It takes great faith to bookend a new beginning. The first part of the bookend is about not even knowing what is needed to begin. There might be a vision, but the steps are scary. When I first started thinking about creating a space for a business, my vision was clear, but I had no idea how to get started, so I began to talk with people and listen. Listening is good advice for any adventure, but for a beginning, it’s essential. Listening to what a job might entail, to advise when getting married or having a child. Listen. I have heard that it takes the same amount of time to complete the first 80% as it does the final 20% - this seems so true. This is the faith needed for the second part of the bookend. How often do we give up on something we began because we thought the last stretch should be quick and without pain? It’s during this ‘homestretch’ that we actually stretch our faith. In labor, it’s the pushing. In running it’s the final stretch. And, in the beginning, it’s the ending phase to the beginning.
Returned beginnings can be projects that were never seen to completion, or places, either physically or experientially, that are returned to at some point in life. As my husband and our family have returned to MN, things are the same and they are completely different. It’s just like getting back on a bike — that’s been worn and rusted. Often, it’s not the knowing how to ride again, it’s the why. A wise friend once said this about regrets, “Be attentive to your regrets. There is an energy that still has life.” It’s not about the ‘specificity’ of the regret, but the incomplete journey. There are always reasons why we let something fade away, or something or someone that we have walked away from. The faith is the looking at this with new eyes, a new faith, and a new journey. People who return to a passion, a relationship, a project. What are you returning to?
Old beginnings - old beginnings are longterm commitments that need new attention and awakenings: a long term job, a marriage, a volunteering commitment. My husband and I have just celebrated 20 years of marriage. This is no longer a new beginning, but an old beginning. Our marriage is sustained by forgiveness and mercies anew. Old beginnings are refreshed through knowing the core and making room for replanting and regrowth. The faith in an old beginning is that when the roots appear withered and worn, appreciating the process of pruning and planting, hoping for the seed to grow one more time.
Sometimes, we choose our beginnings and other times, life throws them at us. Sometimes what we think will be longterm has an ending, and other times what we think will end soon surprises us with endurance. Sometime we hope for a new beginning, and other times we hope for an old beginning. Sometimes we fail, and other times we succeed. Sometimes we can endure and other times we are weak. Sometimes it’s us, sometimes it others, other times it’s life.
No one is immune to beginnings. When it is dark, and your beginnings feels like an ending, let the light shine through because how we sustain our life is by remembering the beginning. And life is sustained by beginning after beginning after beginning, beginning with God.