Undefined Future

Have you ever wished you could jump in a time machine and revisit your past?  Maybe you would like to relive the "good old days".  You might want to experience the world through those naive, but hopeful spectacles we wear in our youth.  It would be so refreshing to not only experience the good times of our past through our memories, but to actually experience them all over again - in our bodies - in real space and time.  Time travel would be exciting!

But if you're like me, you probably would like to change a few things too.  You undoubtedly have a few regrets.  And how nice it would be to get a "do-over".  Now, if we really could change our past - even for the better - we might discover all kinds of other things in our world that would also have changed.  Probably some for the better, and maybe a few for the worse.  But that's a whole other pseudo-scientific philosophical discussion that we'll leave for another time.  Time travel does not exist and so we cannot change our past.  We do not get "mulligans" in the real world.

We cannot change our past, but our past does not define our future - unless we let it.  Our past might inform our future (and it probably should), but it does not have to encroach on the freedom that our future affords us.  The narrative of our life has begun to be written, but it is not yet a fully finished work.  There are blank pages just waiting to be filled with the stuff of our stories.  

To take the story metaphor (although its more reality than metaphor I believe) a little further, we sometimes need to be reminded that people possess the power to change.  Like interesting characters in well-developed fiction, who we are and who we are becoming is an ever-evolving process.  Who I am at 46 isn't the person I was at 23, or even 45.  Who I will be at 50 should be at least a little different than who I am right now.  

Due to major life changes over the past 20 months, I've spent much time in reflection.  I've taken a hard look at my past, both the good and the bad, and I've gained a deeper appreciation for who I am in the present.  And though I certainly have regrets, I have made a conscious decision to learn from my mistakes and then to leave them in the past.  They will inform my future, but they will not define it.

I've also reminded myself that the majority of my history is worth celebrating.  I have had a great life and I am extremely grateful for all the blessings that the Father has poured into my lap.  Christ has accomplished good things through me and the other people he's placed in my path.  And though I am far from finished, I've seen transformation through the Spirit's work in my character.  I'm excited to turn another page and to write that next chapter in my story.  

A few months ago, I thought that I would end "Near St. Anne's and the Sea".  Back in May, I started another blog called The Big Narrative where I explore the grand story of the Bible.  I want to keep that format tight.  But I also want to continue to write and reflect on other broad themes and ideas, and this platform is a good place to do that.  So, like our lives, this blog remains open, free, and in process.  It has an undefined future. - Shay