Every New Beginning Comes From…

….some other beginnings end.

I finished my work for this semester at Seminary on Wednesday.  Turned in my last paper, comparing Nietzsche and Kierkegaard’s critiques of the Christianity and the Church.  Interesting men.  Misguided in their own ways, but brilliant.  As my philosophy prof often says, it is good to have good enemies philosophically, because it keeps you honest and keeps you on your toes.  I love Kierkegaard’s passion, and his infatuation with people living their faiths out in the world and examining themselves.  I love Nietzsche’s use of language.  The man was a word smith of the highest order.  Not always lucid, but always engaging.  At any rate…moving on.

I got a job.  I’ve been hired as the executive for the Historical Society of my denomination.  I guess that comes with a title and stuff, which I’m not quite sure yet that I’m comfortable with.  I’m sure that will come with time, as I learn the ins and outs of the job. My title is Librarian-Historian, and to break that down just a bit, basically my job is to take care of and automate the holdings my denomination has in their collection at our headquarters, and also propagate that history in the popular and scholarly realms as best I can after I’ve automated.  I’m excited for the opportunity to teach history to people.  History has always been one of my passions, and to be selected to fill this job is very exciting.   Of course, in addition, it will give me a chance to right my finances and get ready to get married, which is very key.

The upside to all of this is that I get to move back home to Wisconsin and start work right away, because my denominational headquarters (and subsequently my office) is in my hometown.  Not bad, eh?  I like the way stuff like this works out.  It’s really quite exciting for me.  I get a chance to get my schedule ironed out, start work almost immediately, and get stuff taken care of personally while at the same time doing work I can be happy and passionate about.  Part of my job requires that I have some library science skills, and I don’t have those now, so they are paying for me to learn some basics about that set of skills.  In terms of training, it will add one more line of possible options after I make the decision to leave this job for something else, whenever that might be.

The only downside I can think of is that I’m following someone who was kind of legend, and following after someone like that is almost always making yourself a sacrificial lamb.  I guess that’s just the way it has to work sometimes, though.  The other downside is that contrary to my desire to make a move where I could kind of hide out and get stuff figured out personally, this job has once again thrust me into a position of leadership.  I guess I can’t get away from it, and I should just embrace it.  It must be what it is.  I could have chosen not to take this position, but I felt like this is what I was being asked to do.  However, I think it also means that I’m the youngest executive in the history of the denomination, and that’s a bit of a strange thing.  Luckily this job as Historian doesn’t have the same leadership pressures as many of the other executives, so it’s possible that I might be able to kind of just do my thing and work hard and let the people who want to lead go nuts about it.  Still, I kind of feel like a standard bearer for my generation.  I’m not sure that feeling will ever go away.  There is enough work I want to do where I shouldn’t have too much time to think about it though.

Overall, I’m extremely excited.  And I’m moving home in about three days.  This time next week, I’ll be home.  I couldn’t be more excited.  Having to leave Colorado is going to be tough, but it’s the step I have to take.  And I’m not going to second guess it.  This is the right thing for me to do, and this path has been prepared for me to walk.  And walk it I will.  As I learned growing up, when you make a decision, you make it the right one.  That’s exactly true.  And it’s what I will do.