Beginnings

Beginning is usually one of the most difficult parts of any activity.  For this blog, this first post is a beginning.  Nothing was in this place yesterday.  And now there's something...maybe only a little better than nothing but still something.

Beginnings are never anything like endings, although we often lump them together, with a particular activity or even a life placed in between.  Beginnings are primarily about the activity necessary to start and about unrealized promise and potential, about looking ahead, about birth.

Endings are about looking both forward and back.  Endings are an invitation to integration.  That is, integrating the just ended endeavor with the never ending march forward of life.

It's tempting to think that a nothing follows an ending in the same way a beginning is preceded by a nothing.  That's not so.  An ending has both a before and an after.

Our dog of 7.5 years (Lady) just passed away.  My wife and I struggle to find our new daily routine.  The old one has ended too suddenly and too soon.  Feeding, letting her out, always checking your feet when going through a door to make sure she wasn't going to bowl you over and many many other small etceteras .  All this has passed with her.  We are left to find our way through the veil of whatever is next. We've begun this process.  It too will end.

When that particular kind of ending comes for each of us, it will be the greatest invitation to integration with God and Christ there is.  It will be both an ending and a beginning.  That's the great truth of endings.  They don't exist without beginnings and by the very substance of their nature, they can't help but bring a new beginning.

On we go...