Calm Before the Storm

Can you believe Thursday, roughly 48 hours from the time I’m writing this post a lovely group of Hamline students will begin their adventure to Rwanda? For most of us we are already experiencing a whirlwind, trying to get packed, getting everything together, tying up loose ends before we depart along with trying to mentally prepare. It’s funny, while I presume most of us feel so busy right now, it is still in a sense the calm before the storm. As I sit in my my hammock drinking my morning coffee and listening to the birds with my pup while writing this, I am thinking about how, in a sense, the next 48 hours is the last time I’ll be this version of me, and likely is the same for my peers. I, when sitting in this very place a month from now with my morning coffee, listening to the birds with my pup I’ll have new ideas, new thoughts and new conclusions than I have right now. I think of it much as a snake, shedding an old layer of skin, still keeping its form but with growth comes new skin and with new skin a new, broader version of itself. Mentally we will be challenged, what we thought to be true about the world may no longer be so, and we will likely come back with more questions than before. I am most exited to build onto what I think I know and broaden and perhaps change my current thoughts and perspectives on how I see the world and how it works, especially in regards to human nature. This is the nature of seeing the world through a different lens, feeling and experiencing it opposed to simply reading it and using our imagination. While I am in the midst of starting a new job, moving out of one house to live between three homes, preparing and packing for the trip and tying up loose ends, I recognize that still, in a sense, this is the calm before the storm.