A few new paint strokes

About a year ago, after a break up, I met with my meditation teacher/friend. As I cried and mourned the loss of that relationship, she told me that sometimes freedom comes at the cost of loss. She also explained that an ending can be an opportunity for opening doors that have been closed. “In our lives, we get to paint many paintings. We just have to choose which one we want to hang in the center.”


At that time, it struck me as a poignant reminder to think of my life as more than just a relationship that was ending. Now, I am returning to this metaphor as I think about my future.

I have decided to step back from the painting I have been focusing on. The picture is not complete, but I think that it might be time to relocate this large canvass that has occupied my field of vision. I’m not discarding the work over which I have toiled; rather, it’s time to pull the painting down and place it to the side of something new.

This new canvass is not blank. I am not starting over. There are many strokes already filling the borders of this work. In fact, many of the techniques I learned from what used to hang in the center (academia) will be utilized in this new space (yet to be named). Eventually, these strokes and techniques will come together to complete another scene, another dream for my life.

Being back in Colorado has given me the chance to reflect on the questions I’ve been asking myself since the winter break over coffee and meals shared with the people I love. The long conversations with my good friends and my mentors have helped me to find the words to describe a decision that I feel was made back in December. After I graduate from HDS, I will not immediately enroll in a PhD program. At this point, I do not think I want to make my career in academia. This is not to say I have abandoned the project or that I suddenly no longer want to be a professor. I do. It’s just that I’m realizing more and more that there are things I need to do before returning to the classroom (to be 100% clear: I am not leaving my program or regretting any decisions I have made to date. Just reassessing).

Maybe I’ll be out in the “real world” (silly phrase that that is) for a year and decide that it’s time to get a PhD. Maybe I’ll get a PhD in a research field and then work with faith communities to help them strengthen relations with members. Maybe I’ll be a professor when I’m 60 at a community college in Denver. Who knows? And, I believe I don’t need to know now.

There is no blueprint dictating how I build my life. For me, living is not a fulfilling of plans already made. Instead, it is something to be lived—truly an ever changing canvass. Some days, the picture may be unclear or fuzzy, which might scary. Others, I might think I know what’s coming into focus, just to find that something entirely different fills the edges of the frame. And, should I ever find that the picture has become something I no longer enjoy, there are an infinite number of dreams to be dreamed, and plenty of paint with which to fill a new canvass.