Safety isn't always a good thing...

We all like to feel safe - at home, at work, in our communities. with our families and our friends. This past weekend when I was at home, my sister vehemently reminded me of the necessity to be safe in Doha next year and that sometimes a feeling of safety can be superficial or unfounded. This isn't the safety I speak of in the title of this post. What I'm really talking about is securtiy - that which one finds in a job, in financial status, or even in a relationship. Last fall, my plans for the future involved security. I thought the next logical step to take was to go to graduate school because that's what made sense. It would provide me a sense of security in knowing that I would be taken care of yet again by another university while I was in student status - after all, that's what I've become accustomed to these past 5 years. When you're a student, you have no obligations but to that which you have decided to dedicate yourself, you don't have to worry about a job, you don't have to worry about making mistakes b/c it's all about making them and learning from them. You're essentially a free agent. And I had grown comfortable in that status, which is why I decided it would be a good place to stay there.

During the winter break, I finally realized that this comfort was the main reason for why I wanted to go to grad school - a pretty bad reason if I do say so. Within a week of returning to school I was actively searching for jobs for after my time was up at Carnegie Mellon. I would hear of one idea here and pursue it, and another there and go down that road. I soon became overwhelmed with the number of roads and not much clear direction. Then, out of the blue, I was offerred a chance to go to Doha, Qatar to Education City where Carnegie Mellon had a campus. I said "sure why not!" and soon enough I was submitting my resume for a job there for the fall. One thing led to another and all of a sudden I had signed a contract to work there starting in August. To be honest, I still get scared to think about what kind of change this is going to bring to my life and my future, but that prospect has become equally as exhilerating nonetheless.

A few weeks ago, I was at the Pentecost church service at Shadyside Presbyterian Church and the pastor, Craig Barnes, spoke of welcoming the wind of change: "When the winds of change sweep through your family, your community, your life, do you know what it means? When your safe plans are blown out the door, and when you are forced to move into a strange future that you had not planned, do you realize that this may be the spirit of God who insists on leading you to a new life?... Sanctuaries are good places. We need them to find rest and the renewal of vision. But whenever we use our safe place to resist change, the sanctuary becomes a tomb. Things that do not change are dead, including our lives." Over the past several months, I've come to recognize my safe places, and realize that I'm growing stagnant within them. Doha is not my sanctuary, and I certainly had never planned to go there. In fact, if you would have told me a year ago that this is what I'd be doing, I would have laughed.

Ultimately, the wind pushes us out of our safe places, into places that aren't comfortable, safe, or secure. We can chose to stay inside of our safe places, inside of our tombs, that might protectus from this wind. But in those safe places we don't grow. Growth is the foundation of life, and the wind breathes that life into our existence. So what's the point of existing without having life to live?