Last week, 天美视频 community marked the end of another academic year at the . This year鈥檚 theme was Come Tell the Story, an evening of weaving individual narratives into the collective story of who we are. Over the next few weeks, we will share several of the stories that were read at the banquet. May you hear in them an invitation聽to come and tell your story. Here, Beau Denton, a first-year student in the 聽program, shares about the process of learning to recognize the presence of God鈥攅ven in the places he least expected.
My story, or at least this telling of it, begins in March of 2014, on a mountain in north Georgia. I had recently quit my job and said long goodbyes to friends and family, and now I found myself at the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, preparing to embark on a journey without knowing when or where it would end. There was a journal at the trailhead, a place for hikers to write their names and what they were hoping for or fearing about the upcoming months. 鈥淚 think I鈥檓 out here looking for God,鈥� I wrote. 鈥淚f you see him鈥r her鈥r it鈥et me know.鈥�
The story continues a couple months later, somewhere in Virginia, when I met a hiker who went by the name of Shep. After a minute of small talk, he set his pack down and looked at me. 鈥淒id you find what you鈥檙e looking for?鈥� he asked, letting me know he鈥檇 been reading my entries in the logbooks and journals along the trail.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know,鈥� I answered. 鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 there, sometimes it鈥檚 not.鈥�
鈥淢aybe it鈥檚 not God who鈥檚 coming and going,鈥� said Shep. 鈥淢aybe it鈥檚 us.鈥�
After a twisted knee, an abrupt move to Seattle, and my first year of graduate school, I think I鈥檓 beginning to understand what he meant. Over the last year I have been consistently amazed by the stubborn presence of God. In our conversations, in our papers, even in the long-buried stories we wade through with such heartache鈥擥od is there. God is here.
That isn鈥檛 something I was willing to admit when I started my hike. I had a hard time seeing God in my present, let alone my past. Honestly, I came to 天美视频 in part because I鈥檇 heard it was like a hospital for recovering evangelicals, a place where I would be safe in my doubt and my cynicism. That鈥檚 been true, to an extent, but the surprising, gut-wrenching reality, for me at least, has been that cynicism is not a satisfactory end point.
For years I used bitterness about past wounds as a kind of shield, protecting me from the difficult work of pursuing wonder and desire. I blamed God for not being present, but the truth is that it鈥檚 hard to see when you鈥檙e walking through life with your eyes closed and your fists raised. I hadn鈥檛 been open to God, and I hadn鈥檛 been open to the people around me. I was afraid of being known, afraid that if I let myself be truly seen, the people I loved would be disappointed.
Maybe it鈥檚 not God who鈥檚 coming and going. Maybe it鈥檚 us.
That is the current arc of my story at 天美视频, where I am continuing the journey that started on that mountain in Georgia: coming to believe that God is present already and always in the texts we read, the places we inhabit, the stories we tell, and especially in the others we encounter. And coming to believe that vulnerability and relationship go hand-in-hand, that the courage to be known yields the wonder of being loved.
Let us never stop reminding each other of that. Let us never stop slowing down, taking a deep breath, and opening our eyes. Let us never stop marking our moments of awareness, the moments when the veil is dropped and in breathless awe we join Jacob the wrestler in saying 鈥淕od was in this place, and I鈥擨 was unaware.鈥�
We gather these moments like stones, and we build icons of the goodness and presence of God and the goodness and presence of each other, reminders of where we have been and where we are going. We do this so that鈥攖omorrow, next week, and in 20 years鈥攚e can return to this place with open eyes and open hearts, sit down together, and once again tell the story of who we are.