A true benefit of coming to know one’s own sin is that personal vanity becomes so much nonsense. Such it is coming to grips with age. While many like to regard “middle age” as somewhere between 50 and 70 years of age (which implies that they expect to live anywhere from 100 to 140 years), I am quite content to admit that at 44 I am middle-aged. Of course, mid-40s for an American male is considered by many the prime of life. Family life is settled, earning potential is at its peak, the body is still vigorous (albeit a bit creaky), self-confidence is high, identity is firmly established, and some of us still have our natural hair (if not necessarily our original hair color)

Middle age is just the time to start-over again… full-stop.

It has become commonplace, if not almost trite, that some folk will crest the mountain of their lives, and in that rarefied atmosphere see themselves with a new clarity previously unknown and then begin to question their purpose and direction. Whether feeling a need to finally do something “meaningful” (as if nothing they have done has meant anything of value) or a sense of “calling” to do something new, they chuck the baggage of a lifetime over one side of the precipice and take a flying leap off the other at a tangent to the course they had been treading… And land in seminary. Hence my expectation, upon arriving on campus in Wilmore last fall, that ATS would be populated almost exclusively by graying, balding, bifocal wearing, mostly married, and slightly pudgy middle-age students.

Most of my experiences in life have managed to evade even my most conservative expectations, so it was temporary insanity that led me to expect anything in particular about this place.

What I found was a campus largely peopled by kids a generation younger than I who, had I any children might be their contemporaries. There are, of course, more than a few of us old-folks hobbling around, but most are married and live off campus, if not in another town where they currently pastor. As it is, I suspect that I am the oldest guy living in Grice right now, and it feels a bit odd being back in a dorm after decades (that’s a lifetime for you youngins) away from communal living among the cinder blocks. The transition would be easier if the tag group, that place where the first and often most durable seminary social networks are established, in which I was placed was composed of people who weren’t all living off campus, except for me. I suppose I could insinuate myself into one or another of the many happy social groupings that abound here, but I do not like to step in where I have not been invited.

The point of this isn’t to whine about not having much of a social life, but rather to point out that the awkward social situation is one of a number of things that makes for a fairly wrenching mid-life adjustment when everything is dropped to attend seminary. Although the “mid-life seminarian” has become stereotypical in our culture, the experience of being called to ministry in mid-life is hardly one that can be cheapened or generalized. It is difficult, anxiety inducing, lonely, yet liberating, stimulating, challenging and fulfilling. I cannot think of anything else I would rather be doing right now. Maybe more importantly, I am growing spiritually at a rate that I had not believed possible. I feel the hand of God on me as I go about this sacred task of preparation for ministry. I pray that all who attend here may come to feel this way.

For a few essays at least, I feel called to reflect on this change-at-mid-life experience here in Wilmore. Those who have been this far up the hill with me will maybe hear echoes of thoughts and feelings they already know. Those younger folk who have recently left college (and who have not yet made such a jarring life-reorientation), might learn something new about their more “seasoned” colleagues.

…And I promise to lighten up a bit … I had a little angst to slug through…

Shalom (and I mean that in its fullest sense)…