This week, we are continuing our series in which first year students reflect on the last year and the path that brought them to 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology. Read previous entries from , , and .
Splashing forward along the trail, my shoulders hunched against the rain and the weight of my pack, I felt two thoughts brushing past each other in my mind. The first was that my brother and I were the farthest from a trailhead that we would be on a 10-day backpacking trip in one of the most remote parts of New Zealand. The second was a quote from a Barbara Kingsolver novel, The Lacuna, that I had read six months before, no doubt brought to mind by our present situation:聽on a trail in an unknown, one-inch section of a second map that I had been too cheap to buy. 鈥淭he most important part of a story is the piece of it you don鈥檛 know.鈥� Kingsolver鈥檚 words fell through my mind as I mentally noted pouring rain, swollen streams, and the obvious signs that the forest we were traveling through was a floodplain.
I didn鈥檛 know what Kingsolver meant, and it made me uncomfortable to wonder. I had built my life around predicting outcomes and anticipating risks. I was midway through my fourth of what would be five years of working as the assistant director of a study abroad program, a point when I felt both competent and knowledgeable. Even this backpacking trip, a trip planned months before, had felt so certain, so achievable. But now, with the words 鈥測ou don鈥檛 know鈥� dripping through my consciousness, I felt my anxiety rise as I tried to recall what that one inch of paper had held. Rounding a bend, we saw another three-wire bridge up ahead. I wondered, 鈥淲as this the last bridge before we reach the hut, or was there another river after this?鈥� Neither my brother nor I knew. My anxious mind hurried me towards the bridge along a bank that was partially eroded, dropping off into a deep, high-watered river. We came to a short, washed out section of the bank. I wiped the rain off my face, noted the distance, and thought, 鈥淚 can make this jump.鈥� It happened too quickly to think anything else: I landed, the bank collapsed, and I found myself clinging to tree roots, in a cold tannin-dark river, far too deep for my feet to touch bottom.
In looking back on my journey to today, where I find myself midway through my first year pursuing a at 天美视频, I think first of my decision to leave New Zealand and my job there. It鈥檚 a decision that still makes my heart ache, a mixture of homesickness and resolve. When I explain this decision to people, a few will always nod and say, 鈥淲hen you know, you know,鈥� implying, I suppose, that I somehow had clarity in all of this. Perhaps I had more than I thought I did, but I don鈥檛 remember feeling much clarity; I didn鈥檛 鈥渒now.鈥�
There are still days when I can鈥檛 quite believe I left New Zealand and what, in many ways, was a dream job. But then I wonder, maybe that鈥檚 the point; maybe when I step off the map, into the spaces I thought wouldn鈥檛 hold anything unexpected, I find the heart of the story, the part that trues my life. I chose to come to 天美视频 because I was drawn to the idea of a program that would help me weave together the complex multiplicity of theology, culture, and individual stories, and a program that would equip me to help others to do the same. Now, midway through my first year, I鈥檓 reminded that somewhere in this story is the part where the river bank gives way and I鈥檓 clinging to roots, spitting out sand and asking my brother鈥攊n a voice I hope will sound calm but which ends up sounding small and scared鈥攖o help me. (If you鈥檙e curious, he started laughing and didn鈥檛 stop until I got mad, struggled a little, and said again, but in my normal big-sister voice, 鈥淏rian, help me!鈥�)
When we go backpacking, what makes a trip both memorable and life-altering isn鈥檛 just the mountain passes, sunlit meadows, or reflective tarns; it鈥檚 also the moments when you wake in the dark with your heart in your mouth, the moment you fall through the bank into the river, the moment of tension over burnt pasta compounded by tired bodies. What makes a trip a story is all of these experiences held together, one shaping the other. My experience of 天美视频 thus far, as with any good story, is a mutually informed collection of experiences. It includes both enlightening conversations and confusing conversations. So far I have had one or two brilliant ideas, most of which have since turned out to be only mediocre. It includes crying in front of strangers, and strangers becoming friends.
I wonder now if perhaps 鈥渢he most important part of a story鈥� is the part when I step out without clarity, hearing no voice, seeing no writing on the wall, surrendering my perceived control over 鈥渢he piece that I don鈥檛 know;鈥� maybe the most important part is when, with or without an $18 map, I fall through the bank into deep water and wonder later鈥攖rudging down the trail soaked and covered in sand after being pulled out by my little brother鈥攊f my life just changed. Perhaps this is what author and essayist David James Duncan means in God Laughs and Plays when he writes about experiences 鈥渢hat felt to me like going out with a thimble in your hand, hoping to catch a drop of rain, and having the ocean land on your head. These experiences convinced me that there is an absolute love that pervades everything.鈥� When I, be it deep in the wilderness or in the middle of grad school, hold up my thimble and walk off the map, risking the piece that I don鈥檛 know, I may finally find the most important part of the story; and perhaps like Duncan, I鈥檒l be convinced.