I can identify with many others here who do not regularly share on public forums. I have felt the best way for me to benefit from this ecourse is to share, so I have left myself open. My pilgrim journey has involved transitioning from youth to my middle years and revisiting the decisions I have made, which have taken me this far. I feel the loss of my youth and embracing the unkown. I have been an educator for the past 25 years, and I am on the threshold of my 26 year at the end of this month. I keep wondering if I am doing the “right” thing”-if I am following my vocation. As a young man, I considered entering the Jesuit novitate, and I decided it was not for me. In my middle years, I feel as if I am on another threshold. Part of me wants the security and safety of teaching, which I enjoy, but my enthusiasm has dimmed, so I wonder if I should be doing something else. My currrent and former students affirm my vocation, but I feel as if I have lost a spark. I’m afraid to transition into another vocation, because I don’t want to lose the familiar and to face the uncertainty of the new. I feel unsettled, wanting something new. Is it for the sake of newness or for the pull of my heart? I don’t know the answer to this question. It makes me uncomfortable. I live in uncertainty. These past 25 years have shown me the impermanence of the daily challenges and the students I have the privilege to teach. Do I want to give up on this dream to embrace another? The loss of my brother at a young age of 42 throws into relief the shortness of life and the recognition of impermanence, which demands an honest resposne of yielding and dynamism. I don’t know what to do. I feel stuck. I want a new transition. Does it mean giving myself wholeheartedly to teaching as I have in the past, or finding a new path, which scares me. My identity has been so attached to teacher, I don’t know if I could embrace another. I feel ambivalent. This prayer is offered not for a response but to help me understand where I am, and what I want. Do I want to give up a pension, which is 12 years yet? Am I capable to be seen and lead in an authentic way, which does not diminish me? The name teacher has accompanied me for so long, I fail to trust a new name might emerge. After the death of my brother a few short years ago, I realized names are lost and assumed. Do I trust in my ability to let go of my nice-guy persona to challenge others and engage conflict and inhabit a place of authencity? The difficult decision is teaching offers me these possibilites with security, but I am burned out. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it.

Wow! This week’s session proves a challenge for me. Fear, loss, grief, shame, disorientation, frustration, anxiety, insecurity, loneliness, abandonment, anxiety, and fragility arise as I reflect upon inhabiting the path of the pilgrim. Transitions have never been easy for me, and I do not readily seek them out. Whether beckoned or unbeckoned, I rail against them. It is the leaving that is most challenging. When I am called to embrace the pilgrim journey I often want to turn back to find the ground, but I realize there is no going back but onward to the horizon, which inevitably shapes me into new life. I recognize pilgrim means apprenticing death in the ordinariness of the hours and days and in the more pronounced thresholds of loss into new ways of being.

Thank you for sharing your story with me. I appreciate your kindness. Your words ring true for me-“I needed to leave teaching because of a conversation that I have been having with myself”. Thirteen years ago when I was trying to make a decision to leave my hometown and relocate to a new city in order to accept a new teaching job, I had a very dear and wise soul in my life who encouraged me to make the move. She told me that I had been sitting with the decision to leave (having tea with it), and now it was time to trust in the conversation I had been having for several years. Your words affirm the conversational nature of reality. Deepest peace. Deepest blessings.