Fenway Faith-full

I keep feeling like I need to have something truly profound to say before blogging, so I put it off. And the longer I do that, the better I feel the next one must be, and so the cycle continues, resulting in no new posts. I think I'm missing the point, which is to share thoughts as they come. So here's a random one:

I recently read a book by my favorite sports columnist. He recounts in emotionally-charged detail the years leading up to the Boston's 2004 World Series win. I had forgotten just how it felt to be a Red Sox fan prior to 2004-- the constant dread, the cynicism, wondering how they'll blow it this time, and the nagging sense that no matter how good things may have looked, certain doom lurked just around the corner. I remember that I once felt these things, but two World Series wins later, and I can hardly remember how it felt.

Generally, I was always more hopeful in ministry than in baseball, but still.... thinking back to 2006, InterVarsity hadn't planted a new ministry on a campus in Boston in many, many years. Like Sox fans born after 1918, we'd heard victorious tales of planting, but had never actually seen it with our own eyes. This was more from lack of trying than from gut-wrenching defeats, but either way, we wondered how it would ever happen.

Three years later, with new chapters at Northeastern, Mass Pharmacy, Curry College, and emerging ministry at UMass-Boston, Mass Art, and BU Athletes, it's awfully hard to remember what it felt like for planting to exist only in the realm of far-off hope. But it did, not too long ago!

For better or worse, Sox fans now have a certain confidence (ie, cockiness) about them. But definitely for better, these last three years have given me a level of confidence in God (ie, faith) that I did not have before....

- Paul