WLSU: The First Time

My reasons for studying Italian were much more capricious. I had taken Spanish, German, and Japanese classes at different points growing up, and heading to college I decided I wanted to try a new language. I also decided that I should try to become fluent in whatever language I chose. I was 18 when I decided this. I did not expect to advance any specific career or spiritual goal. I just wanted to be able to watch the Godfather movies without subtitles, and to listen to Italian-American singer Louis Prima and know what he was singing half the time. This was the depth of my decision making.

During my sophomore year it became apparent that studying abroad for at least a semester was an expectation, so I set about looking at programs in Italy, and settled on one in the Northeastern city of Padova (we English speakers call it Padua) because all the classes were taught in Italian, and they had no lessons on Fridays, so students could have long weekends to travel.

As the time approached, people often asked me if I was excited and I felt like my response was uniformly disappointing. The correct response for having the privilege and opportunity to do something adventurous and wonderful and life-changing is to be excited. And when people ask you if you’re excited, you just say yes. Don’t be difficult. They were just asking to be polite in the first place, the last thing they want is authenticity. Just smile and say yes you’re excited and let these poor people move on with their lives.

But no. when people asked me if I was excited, I’d say, “I’m not sure.” Which is just a terrible answer. “You’re not sure?” No, I’m not sure. I’ve never been to Italy before and I have no idea what to expect. And I know discovery and adventure are supposed to be exciting, but I like known quantities. I delight in certainty.

This is something I’ve come to learn about myself, aside from the fact that I routinely give disappointing answers. I have come to learn that I don’t get excited about things I don’t know. I’m not saying that’s the right attitude at all – it’s likely not. It’s just my general disposition.

I didn’t know anyone in Italy. Didn’t know who I’d be living with, or what that would be like. Had no friends, no connections, no anything. I was not scared exactly. I was not worried for my well-being. I just didn’t know how to be excited for the unknown.

As you are hearing/reading this I am on sabbatical, and actually am in Italy. But I’m recording/writing this before I leave. And people have been asking me if I’m excited about this sabbatical. And, unwittingly, I have been giving many people the same unsatisfactory response as I was giving people 24 years ago. 4 months of paid leave from work and a generous grant from the Lily Foundation funding my travels with my family, is something beyond privilege. It’s an embarrassment of riches. It’s an abundant, extravagant cause for joy. Period. Without question.

Am I excited? Not while I’m writing this. Because I don’t know what it will be like and that makes me anxious. I know this will be adventurous and transformative. And also I have never not worked for four months. And I will miss you people. A lot. I am restructuring my life to take a break from the people and community who make my world brighter, who help me understand my purpose, who love and support me. It’s weird. Also apparently it will be transformative but I don’t yet know how.

When we get to Italy this trip, we will be going to a lot of the places I have already been. Part of the reason for this is that I have some sense of what it will be like, and that frees me up to be excited. I’m not trying to reclaim some youthful energy from my glory days. These are my glory days – right now. I’m excited to go to Italy because I’ve been to Italy. Our first stop will be Padova, pulling into town exactly 24 years to the day from the last time I was there.

24 years ago, that trip was transformative. First of all, I found out that the Godfather movies and Louis Prima were all speaking in specific dialects, and that all my Italian lessons weren’t going to help me understand them better. But I also found out that I could be by myself in a new place and find a way to thrive. This was an incredible gift. I learned what it was to make decisions for myself and not depend on my parents or older brothers. I ate new things and traveled on trains and got lost and got found again. I got my heart broken and saw it begin to be put back together again.

And of course it was in Italy that I realized I believed in God. That time for which I was unexcited quite literally changed my life.

How am I supposed to be excited about transformation? About being changed? If I don’t know what I’ll look like on the other side of things, how is that supposed to be an incentive for a guy like me? I think that’s why I’m telling you this story now. To remind myself that I’ve been transformed in the past by these events that make me anxious, that in fact it was an immense blessing.

This is why it’s worth us articulating our moments of conversion. And remember when we talk about conversion we are talking about moments and times of transformation – where we encounter the divine and we are not left unchanged. We need to talk about them because they remind us that they have made us more of who are meant to be. We talk about them because the more we acknowledge God’s work of transformation in our lives the more we can learn to trust that process. And in my case the more excited I am able to be about what God is doing in my life right now. It’s a lot easier for me to accept God changing me if I can recognize the places in the past where God has changed me and I’ve been the better for it.

The end goal is not, I think, being excited about everything. That sounds exhausting. The goal is to learn to trust transformation, to welcome it like an old friend rather than try to stave it off at all costs. I know I’m afraid of uncertainty and change. I know you are too. But when I tell the stories of how I’ve been changed I become less fearful.

Not because all the change has been as fun as a college trip to Italy. No, I want to tell myself the story of my parents’ divorce, of my many rejections, my many moves, of the death of those I hold so close, and to tell those stories alongside the stories of meeting my wife, watching my children be born, learning to drive, finding Church of the Redeemer. I want to tell them all side by side so that I can remember that all that transformation has brought me to today, has made me who I am. And I am a person still being converted, still learning how to see God in all of it, still learning how to love openly and unabashedly and without condition. This isn’t my first time, and that is a blessing.