would have laughed even harder than I did when Ruth's
words exposed my inner mess. My future had already
arrived, and its name was Pendle Hill-the place where my
yearlong sabbatical stretched on for a decade, where I
deepened my experiment with alternative education and
started learning a new way to teach, where my struggle to
understand myself and the world drew me into the writing
that has become so central to my vocation.
My anxiety about way not opening, the anxiety that kept
me pounding on closed doors, almost prevented me from
seeing the secret hidden in plain sight: I was already
standing on the ground of my new life, ready to take the
next step on my journey, if only I would turn around and
see the landscape that lay before me.
If we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to
embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between
our limits and our potentials. We must honor our limitations
in ways that do not distort our nature, and we must trust and
use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us.
We must take the no of the way that closes and find the
guidance it has to offer-and take the yes of the way that
opens and respond with the yes of our lives.