Feeling strangely fine

I was journaling just now and I sort of stumbled into a vein, one of those that I thought however few of you that still peruse ThisSpace might find interesting.

I find myself in a pensive, highly introspective mood today, this 23rd of April, the Year of our Lord 2009.

You see, I attended my last class at Dallas Seminary this morning.

Barring well, a very bad weekend, I’ll graduate in two weeks.

The emotions that last sentence stirs… wow.

I’ve said that more than once, both today and in previous weeks.

“Wow,” as in, “I actually made it”.

“Wow,” as in, “I’ve actually earned DTS’s stamp of approval”.

“Wow,” as in, “I’m actually crossing the finish line with a wind at my back”.

I suspect I’ll shed a tear or two once The Day has arrived, and that I feel to be entirely appropriate.

I’ve experienced some major ups and downs these five years.

Been crazy about obsessed consumed with smitten with two or three girls.

Worked through the battle that hope and depression have waged over me.

Learned (and forgotten most of) a new language.

Picked up a new trade.

Found effervescence again.

Done lots of other stuff that, all told, none of which engender much regret.

The right time has come.

I’ve found my meditation on life of late, over and over and over again, best likened to a TV show with the same fundamental premise but with a few actors gone, some new ones added. Some aspects, the same, others, not so much. A familiarity and a deep and abiding love for the basics (the scenery, the basic plot, the characters’ motivations) but the realization of just how many of the details have changed.

And the inevitable realization that the time to move on has come.

One or two specific guys with whom I started seminary (and are now long gone) and our old dorm (also long gone) have loomed large in those meditations.

Not really sure why; those guys, and that building, just sort of typify my time at DTS.

Perhaps it is easiest to measure time passed by what that passage has produced in others.

Yet I find myself convinced that I’m in such a better, and more healthy place, than I have been throughout these past five years.

I knew, on 17 May 2003 that things were not entirely settled in my world when I hastily parted ways with Hendrix College.

I knew, on 18 August 2004, when I loaded my dad’s truck down with most all of my worldly posessions to come to DTS that I was taking one of the most profound leaps of faith I’d ever taken.

And I know today, here on 23 April 2009, that I have finished-on good, gracious terms-fonder than ever before of our Lord, of those who serve Him and those given to His service.

I guess I’m sort of feeling like now is a very natural, fitting end to the TV series that has been DTS as my passionate soiree with formal education waltzes triumphant with dusk falling all around it.

And ya know what?

I’m feeling strangely fine.