Day 2 (T minus 46 hours)

Its a crisp November afternoon here in Fairfield Pennsylvania and in a sense, it feels like a bit of a homecoming as this was my stomping ground for seven years. In a sense, time seems to have been held in abeyance here. One hundred miles away from the ever present noise of Suburbia Majora, the silence is palpable and only occasionally punctuated by a passing automobile on the road outside. This is a far cry from the road traveled this morning. The hardwood foliage seems to have peaked here and is dimmed by a November overcast.

It was here under these skies where I came fully into manhood. We arrived in Hagerstown/Ft. Ritchie just prior to my 25th birthday and it was here that I made my stand for the Almighty and answered the call to the ministry. Its a bit unnerving to realize that that was 22 years ago!

Today I've returned along with four other Ordinands, two ladies and two gentlemen. The gentlemen, seminarians from Trinity in Pittsburgh are being ordained into the transitional deaconate, prior to the priesthood. The ladies, as in my case, will be ordained as vocational (permanent) Deacons. Fine folk one and all, and I look forward to serving shoulder to shoulder with them in the Kingdom.

It didn't take long to discern the fact that I wasn't alone in my "sanctified anxiety" in considering the just what will be transmitted through the laying on of hands here in the next several hours. I shudder to think that once upon a day, I considered ordination to be a major accomplishment. No, the collar conferred on that day will be a slave's collar. The oath I make before The Almighty is as serious (even more so) than those made during my subsequent enlistments in the armed forces. Yet I can do no other thing. I was born for this and scripture would infer that my ordination along with those of my fellow Ordinands, was foreordained in eternity past.

Its quiet here and I know that my fellows too are alone in their quiet time. I pray that they too are being nourished by the Spirit in this time of introspection and reflection.