The tag on my teabag is preaching to me. The season of last first things has begun.
This is my last first day of school, excluding my Lutheran seminary residency, for the foreseeable future. I have no idea where I will be living or working at this time next year. I managed to postpone my departure from Yale by three more years when I graduated the first time by choosing to study at Yale Divinity School. This time, however, there will be no second chances, no saving things to do next fall, no wandering in the woods of East Rock in a year, no hoping I'll achieve more or study harder or perform better next time around. It is time to assemble my New Haven and Yale bucket list and get to work, time to read every obscure book I'll never be able to locate outside the library of a major research university, time to allot my time to the things that matter most, time to commit fully.
"Love what is ahead by loving what has come before," says my tea tag. I step into this year while remembering six other New Haven autumns, the long bright fall lasting well into November; six other years of watching afternoon sunlight move across my desk as I read and write; six other years of music and of friends who have come and gone (and some who have stayed). When I returned to New Haven after a week away recently, it felt like coming home -- solidly coming home, not the tenuous homecoming of returning to a temporary living arrangement -- for the first time. Six years will do that to you, it seems.
So I will do what I can to love what is ahead by loving and honoring what came before. I know I will hardly be still at all this semester, but when I pause to catch my breath, I will remember the six years that have shaped me. May this bittersweet season of last first things be a blessing.
