I'm just back from three weeks abroad: Paris (hot), Edinburgh (cold), and Cambridge (just right) with a great group of students. I even had the unexpected experience (for the second time-- it happened on our previous study-abroad as well) of someone in the UK coming up to me and asking: "Are you guys from CNU?"
No student got injured, victimized, lost, left behind, or arrested (you can't imagine the paperwork if that happened.) They worked hard, had a lot of fun, and represented their country and their university with good manners and grace.
I should be happy and thankful. And I am. I'm in good (secular) spirits.
However...
I have no spiritual energy, interest, or curiosity. The same state I was in when I left. The same state I've been in, to varying degrees, although the general slope is unambiguously downward, for about the last three years.
In this regard I have not been rejuvenated.
My spiritual lethargy is neither doubt nor depression. I am not suffering from a lack of faith--or I should say the peaks and valleys of my personal faith roller coaster have held constant in their amplitudes. Nor am I depressed. Nor do I find it more difficult to pray. Church is not a burden. None of those things. It is just this: I have no interest in studying anything new, or digging deep into matters theological, or following the latest evangelical kerfuffles.1
I used to dive into arm-chair theology at every spare moment. I would devour books, study controversies, change my mind, change it again, plot my next Sunday School course, study controversies, study church history, change my mind yet again, and take every opportunity to discuss theology with my brothers and sisters. I believe I had the virtue of not caring whether people thought I was right about a particular doctrine, and of recognizing that I might in fact be wrong. I simply thrived on the proverbial iron-sharpening-iron.
Now, instead of theological persuits, I'd rather read popular novels, binge watch something on Netflix, or play Free Cell on my phone. These activities did not distract me from study. They filled the void when I stopped studying.
I don't think this is temporary. I think it is now congenital. And it's not really worrying me. It seems to be the next iteration of me. It is what it is.
You don't have to thank me for a cheerful post! It's what I do!
1 I started to track one yesterday. Some people are upset with Beth Moore, about whom I know very little. There were calls for church discipline. I couldn't focus enough to discern the particulars. The most I could glean is that perhaps she is too soft on the question of homosexuality. It's so tiresome, this circular firing squad of conservative and liberal evangelicals arguing. One commenter announced that he was proud to be a conservative Christian, and that (among other things) socialism was stealing.2 Did I really used to jump into this sort of fray?
2 If we grant that socialism is a sin (stealing) because the government takes your money without your permission and uses it elsewhere, then isn't all government expenditure of tax dollars (including defense spending) also stealing for the same reason? How is the line drawn here? 3
3 That's a rhetorical question, and I have no interest in an actual answer.
We'll miss the old you, I think.
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