I arrived in South Carolina last week in my home town of Pawleys Island. All of my possessions are packed up and taking up space in an attic in Catonsville, Maryland - my new home. I do not yet know what I will be doing there, only that I am taking time from pursuing Ordained Ministry for the moment. I will be in Pawleys Island for the next two weeks house-sitting and taking care of a Shitzu called Vivi and a cat named Toby. In a small condo near the marshland of the South Carolina coast I have been granted a gift of "alone time." While I don't do "Alone" very well, I am looking forward to having this time and space in a place that is familiar, yet distant from family tensions. A place that I am deeply rooted, but is not my home. A place where I can pray in solice and solemnity and strive for clarity from heaven as to where my life should go from here. I have only recently discovered how wounded the final days of Nashotah actually were to my soul and personhood. I previously understood all the other emotions and continue to place them at the Cross where our Lord has already died for them. However, the "wound from which recovery won't mean the status quo," will simply take time. All that said, I am proud to be a Son of Nashotah House and pray with the faithful who have gone before me and whose bodies lie in its earth that this pride continue as a spiritual discipline. While I may have been a "Lost Sheep" to some, I know my redeemer lives and is coming for me. And I am grateful to the friends who I consider family for their love and support in an uncertain time in my life.
And so I sit here with a fru-fru dog named Vivi and Toby Cat and am reminded in this solitude once again that I am not alone. I even have evidence in Pawleys Island itself; that it is connected to the mainland by two causeways allowing a those not on the island to come and share in the joy and the beauty of the ocean front. And so I say in all confidence that I am not alone.
