There are lots of things I've been thinking about posting on, but they are all so nebulous and sociological. So, I've chosen to share with you all something that I feel might have been a defining moment in my life. I'm not sure how or why, but I just can't stop thinking about it.

I've mentioned before that Josh and I have a group of Christian academics and graduate students that we meet with from time to time and have dinner and conversation. Our group met this week for dinner, and as our "guest of honor" we had
Nicholas Wolterstorff a recently retired Yale professor of philosophy, who happens to be doing a fellowship here for the year. I need to interject that, during my senior year of college, I read something he wrote about the call of Christian learning, and it blew me away and I've respected him ever since.

So, this past Tuesday I found myself sharing a delicious meal and an intimate evening in a living room with 10 people as we listened to Prof. Wolterstorff share with us what he thinks it means to be a Christian scholar. It was almost as if he had been listening in on all the conversations Josh and I have been having lately about my frustrations with academics and the challenge I feel in being a person who operates from a moral framework and who thinks that many of the questions scholars are asking are completely irrelevant outside of a moral framework. One thing he said Christian scholars must do is re-think the foundations of the assumptions we operate by in the academy, which made me feel somewhat validated in my ongoing struggle with the assumptions of "positivist" social science that seeks "objective" explanations.

In the end, he told us there are three things every Christian must ask to be sure of their calling:
1. Is it important?
2. Am I good at it?
3. Do I like it?

I wanted to say, "What if you don't like it???" But, didn't want to put my heart on my sleeve in front of everyone (though most of them probably know my struggle.) So, I've been thinking all week about his talk, and about the implications of what he said for my career. I feel like what I'm doing is actually really important, and that I am good at it. But, I'm continually wavering on the "do I like it" question. Sometimes I think I could walk away from Academics tomorrow and never bat and eye, but then I realize that I might feel that I was somehow giving up on something that is a part of who I am - even though I don't always know what part, or how big of a part.

All in all, it was an amazing evening, one I will remember forever. I wish that it were recorded so that the feelings and the setting of that night never fade from my memory. I guess in 30 years, I'll know exactly how definitive of a night it was.