I sip tea at the trendiest coffee-house I have ever seen, in a city where I know close to nobody, wondering about big things. The sort of things you only think about when you are alone, at a trendy coffee-house, sipping tea, and in a city where nobody knows your name.

It could be better.  I could be amongst a few good friends in a much cooler city, but even still, there is something to being alone for a few days in a place you've never been before. You start asking questions. Really deep, dark questions. Deeper than anything you have ever asked yourself and really meant it. 

What am I really doing with my life? 

Do I have a handle on this, or have I just been kidding myself for a really long time?

The kinds of questions you don't ask yourself unless you are completely, nakedly, utterly... alone.

I am not writing to complain or to gather up pity points to cash in for a coffee-conversation with one of you guys in the near future. I am merely thinking through my fingers. A sort of sporadic, stream-of-conscious blurt of word-shaped thought, all suddenly spurted onto the computer screen.

I went for a walk today after journalling over a little coffee. Upper Denver is really cold, but people still carry on with their business like it was 75 degrees and sunny in socal. I wonder, as I walk, if I could ever be a Denver-ite (Denverian?); if I could ever walk the icy streets, minding my own business, praying, thinking, breathing. Because, as some of you may know, that is precisely what I am considering doing come August. I ask, as one leg passes the other and then gets passed again by its counterpart, 'can I do this for at least three years?' Truly, can I leave everything I have ever known and pick up the script in a different city? My breath turns to hopeful ice, but disappears before my eyes. I think about not slipping in front of the "Pizza Alley," and catch myself staring too long at a Methodist church erected in 1922. The church sign reads, "OPEN HEART, OPEN HANDS, OPEN DOORS."  I wonder, silently, if this means they allow gay folk to worship in their congregation.

Again, the thought erupts, spewing discontent, frustration, and lack of clarity: have i just been kidding myself for a really long time? I wince out of discomfort. I look back for the Methodist church, it is still in the dark distance. I think about turning around at the next light because I don't feel like walking through the dark neighborhood ahead. I sometimes question whether doing the work of the Lord, in my life, looks official; pastoral; ordained; theologically sound? Existential plays a chord: who am I, really?  Who will I be?  Am I just kidding myself with seminariantics? Should I just move where I feel most comfortable, get a job, save money; get a different life elsewhere?

...that I have ever known.