 |
| Night-time American Village, Okinawa, Japan 35mm film |
Well, it's only been almost two years since my last post! I think it's time to get this blogging going again. I used to love blogging. I don't know what happened! So much has happened in the past few years! My last post was back in July 2020, written mostly when I was deployed. One of the biggest changes in my life that I haven't written about before has been the introduction of penpalling. I found a penpal-finding Facebook page. It is a page dedicated to just posting something like: "I'm ____ and I'm looking for a penpal that is ...". In fact, the rules are written such that those are the only kinds of things you're permitted to post. Every once in a while there's a generic post about penpalling, not just looking for penpals. Well, I started writing a couple strangers and my parents. It's been a wonderful experience. Essentially, it's like having a couple new friends from all over the country. Unfortunately, because of various delays it seems like most of my penpals have dropped out of the penpalling hobby. One of them has stuck through the delays (while I was deployed I didn't write much), and I'm glad he has. I think hand-writing letters is a fun pastime that has died off. It makes me sad that people don't put pen to paper much anymore. I don't think it'll matter, but I'd love to think that my letters and my journals might matter to someone someday. I'm reading the book
A Severe Mercy and it entails some letters back and forth between the author, Sheldon Vanauken, and C.S. Lewis. I will almost certainly never achieve the level of C.S. Lewis, but I'd like to think that someone might like what I have to say and want to keep them and maybe share them with someone someday. Well, for that to ever happen, I have to actually write things! So, here I am, writing. Hopefully I can keep it up more this time. I only wrote five entries in 2020 and only one in 2019!
One piece of news that I do really think I want to share in this mini update. I sat with our unit's representative chaplain. He works with multiple units but he comes to our squadron three days a week. Well, today I had a chance to sit down with the chaplain and chat. Our chat reaffirmed that I want to finish my seminary degree and become a military (preferably an Air Force chaplain). I did find out an interesting piece of information today. Chaplains, when they gain their commission incur a four-year commitment. That's fine with me. And, if I really like the position I'll want to stay. If I stay over twenty years active duty I'll earn a better retirement. The chaplain I chatted with started his role as chaplain after he had served twenty years. The upside here is that if it doesn't work out for me to become a chaplain I will be able to retire. Hopefully, it's God's plan that I become a chaplain. I feel like that's what I'm called to do. I've wanted this for several years and I enjoy teaching and preaching. I just need to finish my degree and get some experience and then I'll apply.
