A flash from the past... once, I started a blog, when there were but a handful online, I suppose... 2004. Six long years ago... was I working at the ad agency then? Were they drilling through concrete right next to me, to open up a stairwell? Somehow, we did work through it... now it is so quiet where I work, we can hear the coyotes howl at night. No trains... no sirens... only an occasional car passing by, a dog barking... and the wind howling, at times.

Some dreams you leave along the side of the road. Others you never knew were in you, until something pops the top off of them. At some point, when you take a lefthand turn at Phoenix, you run into new dreams that seem to fit like a glove.

For a decade or more, the thought of becoming a pastor had entered my mind. At least, I tried to find books about it at the Wichita Library. And I did ask my spouse what he thought of the idea. (It wasn't a good one, in his mind.) Eventually I found myself standing in front of a lectern in the chapel where I went on the Walk to Emmaus, looking down at the open Bible before me, reading the story of Phillip helping the Ethiopian eunuch understand the word of God. Never did I think that I might be that person in someone else's life, one day.

And then I found myself buying books on pastoring, for heaven's sake, at the local used bookstore. What was I thinking? Who (or what) was causing me, prodding me, to do all these strange things? It certainly wasn't a part of my plan.

The time I spent lying in a hospital bed, which I've recounted here, in an earlier post, gave me this incredible passion for people 1. who find themselves in a similar position, and 2. who experience longterm, physical pain.

When my job at the magazine came to a sudden end, I used the time to have a second surgery. Now I have something of a kevlar vest across my gut, a big hernia repair from the first time around. I cannot complain. It has been several years ago, I feel much better, and things are not the same, but it all worked out.

At some point, I had an amazing day following a hospital chaplain around St. Jo hospital, during which I felt as if I were walking on holy ground. Then a stint as a marketing director, and a long-searching process to continue my candidacy for ministry. (Along the way, I became a certified lay speaker.) Just when I was wondering if I needed to do ministry part-time or full-time, my marketing position was eliminated... and I received the answer I was looking for.

Again I shadowed a hospital chaplain, only this time, for a longer duration... something of an internship. I would walk into a room, identify myself, and some of the most amazing conversations would happen... me, just sitting, listening... and I knew this was something I truly wanted to do, if life really was short, if life really needed to be spent doing something meaningful.