On the road, again

Just a few weeks ago, the Elisaras returned from a mammoth seven-week roadtrip. After a week in Belize, we headed to the East Coast. We started in Pittsburgh, headed up to Toronto and surrounding areas, backtracked to Buffalo, took the train to Boston, did a mini-road trip through Massachusetts and Connecticut, ending up in Philly, then finally made it to D.C. At the end of the trip, Ethan summed it up well, saying “My memory card is full!” It was strangely restful and exhausting, but we came back with what we were after: perspective. We took the trip for a variety of reasons, but a major one was to catch up with many friends who are living interesting lives, doing interesting work---and this never fails to give us a fresh angle on our own life.
We’ve timed it just right so that attended a benefit for Peace of the City ministries, an after school program pioneered by good friends living in inner city Buffalo. Later we met up with other friends in Philadelphia, working to create partnerships between urban and suburban churches. Many alumni were on the itinerary: one working in wind energy, another serving as a priest at a historic Virginia church, yet another newly married and negotiating a job and further graduate classes. In Canada, we visited CCSP professors Brian and Sylvia Walsh’s farm in Lindsay to see their new experiment in intentional community. We got peeks at a Waldorf school, a courtroom, an organic farm, another study abroad program in D.C. We ate at friends’ favorite haunts, saw some of the sites of their cities, and talked late into the night.
Our goal was to hang out with these good people and get a flavor of their lives, from neighborhoods to jobs to ministries to families. We know that we can learn a lot just by being in someone else’s space, doing the things they normally do, and asking lots of good questions. We went to see different communities, churches, and neighborhoods—be in different living rooms, eat at different tables, see the world from different vantage points.
As all of you are venturing out on your own vocational journeys and establishing biblically faithful lifestyles, I encourage you to get out and visit other you respect and get a whiff of what they’re doing. Take road trips, live their lives for a day, ask focused truth-seeking questions. Observe, record, compare, contrast, participate, reflect. Chris and I are well into our marriage, family life, and our work with CCSP -and yet we make a point of getting out to see what others can teach us and how they can inspire us. I encourage you to do the same!