“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
Hey blog. Happy May! A great friend of mine Madelyn once said, “You can’t earn springtime.” That’s been sitting with me especially deeply this month. God bless spring!
Two weekends from now I’ll be a Raleigh Fellow ALUM! I’ll be processing the goodness of this year for a long time—it’s truly flown by. I’m so thankful that so many things the program has introduced me to will continue long after we’re done with our Fellows year. I’m excited and glad to keep calling Raleigh and Apostles home. I could have never expected how settled and rooted I’d feel here after only a few short months.
Miss Kassie wrote us a letter that we all got on our welcome retreat that I reread this week. In it she mentions the “sacred temporariness” of this year, and while I’m grateful for the things I love that are just beginning, I’m struck by the end of it all! Never again (I assume) will I work a 24-hour work week and play pickle ball every Monday afternoon and live with a host family and experience freshly all the other unique parts of a Fellows year! But I’m learning that seasonality is a gift: there is indeed “a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
For the last time on this blog!
Derren
“Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy.” — Henri Nouwen