thepile

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whatstays1

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I have 5 of these boxes. They’ve been stacked up, tucked into the corner of a closet since I packed away my academic past 8 years ago.

It’s time to sort through them and decide what stays. The temptation to not even sort, but to load them into the car en masse and take them directly to Goodwill is overwhelming.

It’s not because I don’t want to look at it. I’ve reconciled my feelings about my past academic career. I guess you could say that my priorities have shifted. I’m less interested in theory these days and much more interested in practice.

I could read a book. Again. Yet another tome on whatever it is I’m working on (parenting, marriage, ministry…)  Or I can get down to the business of doing it. It’s inside thinking vs outside thinking. And while I can’t tell you the specifics about the next chapter of my life, because I’m still figuring that out–I’m pretty sure I know what it doesn’t entail: hoarding books in boxes.

So, I will sort, if a bit begrudgingly.  With a new rubric for what makes the cut and a willingness to be guided by something more than what you can find in a book.