Strap Yourself In!
There are parts of me that will never grow up, I think, and I’m quite happy with that. I took out my Scalextric set a few weeks ago, and discovered that the rubber tyres on the cars had perished, so it’s sadly back on the shelf with my Meccano and the empty space for the train set that my children will need soon, I’m sure, and will need me to supervise. Back to the Lego, then.
I consider ice-cream to be a basic food group. I’m sure many of you will agree.
I like fairgrounds. I love rollercoasters, and rides that leave me sure that my internal organs have been significantly rearranged. But I don’t like bumper cars……. Somehow deliberately bumping into other people’s cars, and being bumped myself, doesn’t appeal. It’s the reason I stopped playing rugby. Too many people enjoying bumping into me a little too vigorously.
University is a bumpy place to be. We all arrive here to study or work with ideas about what it will be like, and what we will get out of it, and very quickly discover that we get bumped a lot. It’s not a smooth and gentle journey, on the whole. Ideas get challenged, minds get stretched, relationships and friendships ebb and flow. Sometimes it’s wonderful, sometimes it’s really uncomfortable, sometimes it’s both at the same time.
And this is a place to really ask where God fits into it all.
It’s not a place for easy answers, but for difficult and searching questions about who we are, who God is, and what it means for us to have our lives shaped by our relationship with God. It’s a place for healthy scepticism, for diverse and broad experiences of church and faith, for figuring out a little more of what it means for us to be following Jesus, a place for caring for each other in our vulnerability.
It’s also a place for laughing, playing, celebrating and praying together. It’s a place for adventure.
I expect it to be a bumpy year. Not a bad year, just a bumpy year, because I learnt last year to expect the unexpected. A lot of the unexpected surprises of last year were wonderful. Some have left me with work to do, inside and out. In all of it, I feel blessed.
May you all have a similarly bumpy and blessed year. If you bump into me, it will be gentle, and I’ll buy you a coffee if you have time.
Welcome to York, or welcome back to York.
Rory is the university’s methodist chaplain. He can be contacted on rjd504[at]york.ac.uk