Be like the fox

Year-end reflections

In 2022, the buried notion of a move back across the country pushed urgently to the surface of my mind. It was disruptive enough that I made plans to get out of my lease in Boston, but vague enough that I began living nomadically, settling for a month or three in spaces generously offered by friends and family. Embarking into this no-man’s-land felt like an act of faith. Idealistically, I called it a “season of discernment.” As I packed my life into boxes— books, rugs, artwork, kitchen tools, etc.—I was excited. Where would these boxes be re-opened? What home would they re-appear in that I could make my own?

This in-between time was meant to be short, six months tops. I was an established adult with over ten years of professional successes under my belt: I could figure it out. There was certainly an invitation hidden in the questions and possibilities. I was sure that by walking in faith and asking for direction God would make it plain. That’s how discernment works, right??? But after 18 months, five address changes, two states, two exit interviews, and many job applications later… I’m still wandering, worn out with liminality.

Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.

Last week, just a few days before Christmas, I sat on the floor in my room at my parents house, taking stock of my life. The closet has become an impossible jigsaw of loose shoes and half-opened boxes after I went searching for the sweaters I had packed up at some point in the past year. My bad habit of putting things in piles has only gotten worse over the past 18 months of uprootedness. Each home has been a gift, and yet no place has felt like home. Why use drawers or coat hangers when you’re just going to have to pack everything up again? Surrounded by gifts to be wrapped, empty packaging, and a sprawling mess of books and laundry I remembered the words of the Israelites in the wilderness: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to begin with!?”¹

Here at the end of 2023 I’m looking back on all of this and wondering: would it have been better if I had just ripped the band-aid off and moved in one fell swoop? Was each stop along the way necessary, or could I have spared myself some steps? In this season of wandering I’ve questioned my sanity and my ability to hear the voice of God. I’ve wondered about the attunement of my gut to wisdom and about the clawing of my mind that demands parallel reasoning and proof. I’ve struggled with why I couldn’t quite explain my sense of stirring to others, and felt shame over the possibility of being a spineless millennial that just needed to grow up and get a grip.

In just over a week, I’ll start a job that I probably could have had months ago when I first moved to Tennessee. It’s the opportunity I have been desiring and have also been too afraid to explore. Why couldn’t I have just gone from A to B? What has all the wandering been for? Has the liminality been necessary? Has it all been a waste? I shared these questions with my spiritual director recently, trying to find some evidence that I wasn’t crazy. She reminded me gently that though I haven’t always known where I’m going, I know what it sounds like to hear the word, “Go.” Like Abram leaving his homeland I know the push, the invitation that packs you up and sends you stumbling into the wilderness with just that little word as the anchoring point to give a sense of direction: “Go… to the land that I will show you.”²

What power had I
Before I learned to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall possess the field.

I know too that the wilderness years for the children of Israel had more than one purpose: both to unlearn the way of slavery and to learn the way of rest. To an outsider it was all aimlessness and insanity, but to an insider there was an experience of identity: walking by faith and trusting in the God of their fathers. I’m far enough into my own wandering to see bits of wisdom in it, to recognize that I’ve been learning to “Be like the fox / who makes more tracks than necessary, / some in the wrong direction.”³ I’ve been going and shuffling restlessly about, but I’m finally beginning to sense a shift in the landscape. It is a bit less desolate now; there are hints of green to give me hope. It seems less endlessly flat and I am seeing more distinguishable landmarks.

Photo by Amanda Frank on Unsplash

Maybe in 2024 I’ll pay rent again. Maybe I’ll put my clothes in the drawers instead of boxes or piles on the floor. Maybe I’ll feel less lost, more grounded. Or maybe I won’t. I can’t claim to make sense of the past year, nor can I claim that this wilderness is over. I still don’t totally know where I’m going. But regardless, I’m learning to hear the whispering wind of the Spirit: to track it like a fox, to change directions abruptly and follow the scent. Slowly, slowly I’m learning to lean with the Great Wind— to yield.⁴

1. Exodus 17:3, my paraphrase

2. Genesis 12:1 ESV

3. From “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” by Wendell Berry

4. The two verses in italics are from, “A Milkweed,” by Richard Wilbur. This poem has been a prayer I have come back to throughout this season.