Hello everyone. Happy New Year’s Day Two to all who celebrate. I think I’m retiring from all New Year’s Eve festivities for the foreseeable future. I just can’t hang anymore. I had pretty big aspirations to write a meaningful Christmas blog. My plan was to talk about the lyrics of this song called “Baby Son” by John Mark McMillan, and then relate them to a lovely message that Elijah shared with the youth ministry the other day regarding the humility of Jesus. Unfortunately—albeit tragically on brand of myself—I missed the due date of that Christmas blog by about a week. This isn’t even remotely close to the latest I have submitted an assignment (that record belongs to my EdTPA rough draft submission two months after the due date), but I figured I would decide on a new topic for my blog since not many people are ‘tis-ing the season anymore. My new topic is actually gonna spark up a little bit of controversy… real quick sidebar though. I did a google search for “Baby Son” to make sure I spelled the artist’s name correctly, only to discover that such a google search results exclusively in stock pictures of babies. I figured that was worth sharing before I got into it.
My heart belongs in Boone and I don’t like Raleigh. There I said it. That’s my big secret. I’m sorry to all the loyal Raleigh fans out there. Please don’t take it personally, I’m just not a big city guy. I understand that there are way bigger cities out there, but for a guy that has Davie County in his blood, Boone on his mind, and Utopia Texas on his résumé (do a little google search on Utopia Texas after you do my “Baby Son” experiment), there’s a little too much going on in Raleigh for me. Though the aforementioned statement I made is genuine, I have no malicious intent towards the Raleigh faithful. I just needed a good segway to talk about God’s favorite pla- I mean my favorite place in the whole wide world. I actually just got back from Boone yesterday. I was with my friends celebrating New Year’s Eve a couple days ago (for the last time ever I guess since I retired in the first paragraph). Though it was fun and eventful, I’m actually going to talk about this past Sunday… in which I was also in Boone. I had been wanting to visit the church I attended while I was in college, so I decided to drive up for the day and spend some time with my friends Barrett, Libby, Gracie, and Meg (Meg Spickard, Fellows Class of 2024 and avid pickleballer, you know the one).
I made it just in time for the church service (4 mins late), and afterwards I got a chance to catch up with my friends Vern and Matt. Vern is the pastor of Boone United Methodist and Matt was my spiritual mentor while I was in college. Those two guys poured into me way more than I have time to write about, but just know that they mean a lot to me. After church, my friends and I got lunch at Comeback Shack. I was a WyldLife leader at Green Valley School for three years while I was in Boone, and I saw one of the guys I led while we were eating. His name’s Brayden and he’s now a freshman in high school. He has grown a lot taller and his voice has gotten a lot deeper (I don’t know who let him get away with that but it’s whatever I guess). It truly was a blessing seeing him, even if it was only for a minute. After we ate we went to Blowing Rock to dilly dally for some time. While we were dallying–just after dillying–Barrett asked me to be one of his Groomsmen. This was actually the highlight of my year, but don’t worry I’m playing it cool (but also if you wanna know more about it let me know because I’d love to share). Following this sweet moment, we ended our evening at Vern’s house, spending our last couple hours in Boone together with him and his family.
It was the best two hours of the entire day. Six out of the seven Collins family members joined in with me and my four friends. According to my calculations, that comes out to be eleven people total. No I did not show my work. Anyways, we had eleven people around a table that can only sit seven comfortably, and there was no place I would have rather been. We talked about what felt like everything, but my favorite thing we talked about was Sonic 3. I say “we” very loosely because really only I talked about it, but it came out in December and is actually incredible so y’all should go watch it (after seeing Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 of course). Our topic of conversation doesn’t really matter. More importantly I want to zoom in on the picture of eleven people gathered around the dinner table. They’re not family. Well, not all of them are family, but they might as well be. There’s a lot of joy on their faces. Some of them are enjoying the cheese, ritz crackers, and peanuts that were provided as the evening's hors d'oeuvres (for sure had to look that word up). Others are belly laughing at a comment made. When I think of that picture, I think of everything that I’ve left behind, and It’s part of the reason I cherish Boone so deeply.
But, for everything that I have in Boone, I feel as though it’s been multiplied in Raleigh. Many of my friends have asked me what I love most about the Raleigh Fellows program, and my answer is always the same: the people I’m doing it with and the church that we’re a part of. Upon moving to Raleigh, I had a hard time explaining to people what it means to be a “Fellow” (if anyone’s figured it out let me know). From my point of view, the reason it’s so hard to explain is because it doesn’t make sense to have sought after things such as loving community and wise leadership handed to you so seamlessly. It’s hard to paint that picture clearly for people. Now, that’s not the all encompassing embodiment of what a “Fellow” is, but I think it’s the most polarizing characteristic of it all. To be the beneficiary of something like that is truly a gift, and back in August, I wasn’t aware of how much of a gift it would be. Now, at the halfway point of the Fellows year, I’m starting to fully understand just how rare and special it is, and it’s something I’m very grateful for. I know I’ve only been a Fellow for four months, but I used to be a Fellow for zero days, so gratefulness feels appropriate.
Boone will always be better than Raleigh though don’t even get it twisted.
My song recommendation for this blog post is “Baby Son” by- actually, if you don’t remember from the first paragraph just google “Baby Son” and you’ll figure it out.
Love, Bailey