Back Safe Home Again...

Home once again. Is home truly where the heart is? Is it home because of the people, or is it remembered experiences that make it solid, worthwhile? The esoteric way that memories spring forth, responding to the call of myriad tactile associations that only the subconscious can process. I wonder, can animals feel a sense of home? I have to reintroduce myself to my family's cat every time I return, so obviously for her, home is, if anything, separate from the other creatures that inhabit it. For her, it is a territory; a space.

Maybe it's the interaction of all the above that creates that feeling of home. Whatever it is, it seems to be a universal human longing. Odysseus, the brave warrior of Homer's The Odyssey, was driven by his desire for home. It was the only thing that could tear him away from the allure and spells of the goddess Circe...that and Penelope, his wife, of course. There is something compelling about having a place to call one's own and many a man (and woman) has died defending the ideal.

So...here I find myself. Home once again. Home in Marion: a place I have never actually lived. It's a new home and less a place that I live than a place that I feel that mysterious, palpable emotion of wellbeing we so often associate with home. I braved awful Chicago Christmas traffic to make it here; to be home with my family. All is as I left it and will continue to be so long after I have returned to the two bedroom apartment I now call home with the friends that have become my surrogate family.

That's it...no applications, no pretenses, no insights...just home. It cannot be described and I won't venture to try. There's just the experience of home and the experience can only be felt. It's best just to savor it with all the beautiful moments that will coalesce in the mists of future memory.

Life After College

By this point many of you are probably starting to wonder whatever happened to Jonathan Sprowl. For many of you this blog is your only point of contact with me; a veritable telescope in which you catch a glimpse of a comet as it flashes across the sky. Perhaps it's presumptuous of me to compare myself to a heavenly body, but I'm sure you've caught my intent. Flowery metaphors aside, I have been silent for a long time.

I could give many excuses: a fried laptop, busyness, a lack of worthwhile news, but honestly, life after college has been like learning to walk on a treadmill on the highest setting. I've got the skid marks on my face to prove it...well...not literally. I've started a new job with a prominent Christian publishing company and settled into the 9-5 life. My friends have lost that crazy "Let's do something. Who cares if it's 2am." college streak and replaced it with a prudent deference to sleep in preparation for another workday. Other friends are now engaged, married, or card-carrying parents. In essence, I have entered a new demographic: that of the young, single working male.

My adventures learning to drive stick shift have given me an apt metaphor for life's many transitions. Shifting gears, quite frankly, takes a great deal of practice. Each new gear gives you more power and increases your speed. Each new gear also requires a gentle negotiation between clutch and gas pedal. Too much gas you get a jolt, too much clutch and you get an unpleasant gear grinding. Each gear prepares your engine for the next one, and if you try to skip too many the engine can't handle it and protests loudly.

I'm in the process of shifting gears. The comfort of being a college senior has been replaced by a displaced feeling. Degree in hand, I am back at square one, trying to find myself on the radar of human history once again. The future is bright; blindingly so. It'll be exciting to see what the next five years will hold...

But, enough musing. Most of you are thirsty for news, not existential meanderings. As I've said, I'm settling in to life after college. Currently, I'm living with 3 other guys in a suburban apartment overlooking a lake. It's not bad for what we are paying for it, though the kitchen is criminally small. I take my little green Mazda out for a spin every once in a while when it gets antsy sitting in the parking lot, or tires of the daily commute to and from work. My work consists mostly of implementing paid ad placements in e-mail newsletters. It works fine as a first job, but I hope I'm not still doing it in two years. It's far too mindless and can feel a little mercenary at times. I do, however really like my co-workers: a couple other recent grads and two older married women.

I'm joining my church's college staff. I figure I should give back a little of the rich blessing I received in my four years on the other side of the table. Hopefully, I'll be able to share some of my experiences with the young up-and-comers, and bring a voice to the group that's not coming from an older, married person. It'll also be nice to get more involved in my church as my college friends begin to go their separate ways. Whatever the coming year holds, it should be filled with adventure and growth. Thanks for stopping by...

Graduation

Today I graduated. Those words are still incomprehensible to me. Four years of toil and growth came to an end with one seemingly short two hour ceremony. The tassle moved from one side of my cap to the other and with it my world shifted. As my roommate so aptly put it, I went from being a college student to a "young single." And as my family slowly trickled back to their respective corners of the world, I was left to do what I do best: contemplate.

I found my self simultaneously experiencing an intense sorrow and intense joy; sorrow as I said goodbye to friendships and a way of life that has grown to be incredibly fulfilling, and joy as I looked back on what I had accomplished in four years. How do you sum up four years at Wheaton? How do you wrap them up and put them away in favor of the next step? How do you move on from an experience that has defined your young adulthood and shaped the very essence of the man you've become? In some ways you can't. If we ever truly invest ourselves in something or someone, we can't just pull away without some form of severence. Life requires that we make relationships knowing that they may end, that we learn from professors we will eventually have to say goodbye to, that we surrender ourselves to ideals knowing our convictions may change, that we live boldly yet always with a realization that life is transient. Because of this, goodbyes are always painful and change carries with it an element of fear.

Today's ceremony was done perfectly, and I felt myself falling in love with Wheaton again, one more time. My friends and classmates streamed before me to receive their diploma covers and there was a sense of celebration in the air as they basked in the limelight. My friend, Anne Snyder, gave an incredibly moving address that really summed up my Wheaton experiences well. Before I knew it, they called my name and I walked across the stage in a surreal stupor of raw emotion and intense focus. President Litfin smiled at me with a paternal glow in his eyes and whispered congratulations. It was all I could do to murmur a weak "thanks" as the constant flow of graduates carried me back to my seat. And with that, I was a graduate...an alumnus.

Why, I wonder, are life's big bends always so abrupt? Perhaps it is a grace that like a child who does not have time to feel the pain of a shot before it is over, the goodbye for me was quick and tearless. Perhaps it is my heavenly father's love for me or an obedience to the aphorism my grandmother included in the card she gave me for graduation: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Yes, Wheaton was a blessing more rich and deep than I can express, and it will always carry a dear place in my heart. May God bless the institution forever, and I hope that I will be able to go on from here to bigger and better things in the power that Christ provides.