I sit here in the airport, knowing full well this will not be published until I get home and reacquire internet access, and that point will be well beyond the final paragraphs of this chapter and into the first few of the next. But that is okay.

(And yes, I am back to blogging, though probably more rarely and more purposely than I have in the past, as I hope to explain soon.)

I could scarcely have asked for a better summer. In fact, I have found that in general God blesses me so richly and so far beyond what I deserve that I am wholly unable of even asking for the goodness of his gifts. It has not been a perfect summer – there were issues with work, and there are things I would do differently if I could go back. But all of it was enriching, and I learned so much from the whole experience, a blessing almost without ceasing. I have gained much experience in the work environment, both toward technical skills and having an understanding of the workings of political professionalism, and where I do and do not want to be. I have made such wonderful friends, even one from my own college (again, who I don’t think I could have asked for). I went to an amazing church where I was welcomed in so warmly and sent off with equal if not greater warmth, and found a group of interns with whom to fellowship and – this is no small thing! – to go on numerous hikes with. I have seen more of God’s majesty in Washington state in a shorter period of time than I ever have before. My heart for hiking has been secured. This last weekend in the area was filled with two excursions, the last of which was to one of those diamonds God has nestled in his creation and which steals away both my heart and mind. I cannot remember smiling more or being filled with more joy than I have these past few months.

And yet it is very clearly the end of a chapter of my life. In fact, so well written that I’ve been pondering about its scriptedness! For if I were writing my life (and I could not possibly be since, as I have mentioned, I have neither the skill nor imagination to do so) I would place the chapter’s end precisely here: where the close of a period of life ends in goodness and decency, and there is a glimpse into what is coming ahead – a glimpse and not a surety, the only certainty being that it will be more challenging and more rewarding than what has gone before. For my last two years (or year and a half) of college will be very different from my first two – that much I know. Not in small part due to me being more out, but also being less of a fundamentalist, having a broader group of friends, and having far more courage and confidence in the existent God and my place with him. I am excited that the barriers which kept me very much a loner have come down, and yet I find I still have the self-same heart which loves the desert, and finds its home there. I am excited that I have found that God is far bigger than I ever imagined him, my life more dependent on him and wilder than I thought. What adventure lies in the future in being an (openly) gay Christian? What adventure in being unafraid to get to know those around me? What gain in this path to finding a stable work, a balancing and determining of what those things are that will fill my life, rather than the aimless wandering I have entertained for all these years? It is as if I have opened my eyes for the first time and seen that Christ is everywhere: there is trouble and anxiety and difficulty, but no fear because I am never, nor can I ever be, without him.

I am at a loss to explain the sense of utter satisfaction and contentedness I have with this closure. I am wholly filled and yet already have the foretaste on my tongue of what comes next. Had I the time (which I do not now), I may attempt to put it into poetry or a more aesthetic prose. But I am deeply moved in my σπλαγχνον and have no alternative but to praise God with a smile on my face. How great is our ever-present God, and my wonderful Christ, who is mine for all eternity – even now.