In every stage of life, you learn things that may (or may not) transfer into the next stage of life. In some stages, the best you can do is get through each day. Other stages offer you time to reflect. A full life is one in which lessons learned in the present stage are integrated with those from every other stage.
I’ll admit that I’m working on this.
Like you, my life has had many stages. There are the major ones: childhood, marriage, parenthood, the “sandwich” years, and so on. I’ve had interests that seemed to carry the weight of a life-stage: music, photography, spirituality, travel, filmmaking, activism… all of our experiences make us who we are and have some bearing on who we aspire to be.
As a pastor, I worked out my spirituality in public. The discipline of learning to tell stories in order to help and inspire people was profoundly formative. As a filmmaker, I brought music and images into the act of informing and inspiring. We all know the power of travel, how a trip that takes you just outside your comfort zone can be the most transformative experience you can have. I’m still trying to work it all out in public.
Sometimes when we move from one stage to another, we fail to integrate those lessons. Like life, this site may start to feel a little cluttered. But if you’re reading this, you are willing to indulge me once again to work out my stuff in public.
Let’s get going.