The way of love - Part IV: Turning the corner

I had a chance to visit with an old friend last night. I’ve known him for about 7 years. He moved away about 8 months ago, but is back in town visiting this week. He brought up the fact that I haven’t blogged recently.

He said “for a while there, you were writing your heart out, and then… nothing.”

There are two main reasons for this. The first is that my busiest season of the year runs from May through September when we close out the year for our Fulltime program (which I direct) at CTI, move through our Summer outreach season (I coordinate all our international outreaches), and launch a new year for the Fulltime program in August with training that runs until October (I’m responsible for developing and overseeing the program and associated training.)

Consequently, I have very little time or mental energy to devote to “recreational pondering” during this season. The moments of introspection I do have are almost all dedicated to visioning for the next year of our Fulltime program.

But something else has kept me away from the blog these past few months as well, and that’s the “now what?” factor. The lack of a clear answer to the problems I’ve evidenced to myself through the “Way of Love” series has sort of sapped my motivation to probe further into the subject… and I’m a compartmental eater, which means I have a hard time moving on to something else until I’ve completed whatever is currently on my plate.

The point of the “Way of Love” series has been, mostly, for me to objectively journal about my personal struggle to truly evidence the virtue of love in my life. I’ve spent a lot of time proving to myself that this fruit lies at the heart of all other Christ-like character traits; that without it, no other godly pursuit really matters.

Well, mission accomplished. I’m convinced – and more than a bit disheartened - because I have once again evidenced my knack for clearly documenting problems, but not identifying the solutions. And I really want to see this problem of love solved in my own life (if I may be so pragmatic.)

And so we turn the corner from exploring the problem to exploring the solution.

[to be continued]