ONE OF MY FIRST EVENINGS in Honolulu back in the the summer of 2003 involved going out to eat with my one friend and many of my new co-workers.  I think we had Japanese food, though that memory eludes me.  It was a good evening, full of people that I could see being good friends with as time and chance allowed.  We talked books and Calvin and Hobbes and other things that made me feel like I had come to a good place at a good time.

A couple of weekends ago, one of the last people from that group of then-strangers got married.  It was the nice event, the third I had been to from that group.  In one wedding I was a groomsman and sang at the reception.  For the second occasion, I was one of the emcees for the reception.  This third time I got to be a simple and pleasant presence.  As I listened to people share (at least three of them present at that first dinner), I couldn’t help but reflect on how this group of people, these people I had partially “banked my new life on” had changed.  Almost all of them now married, some of them with children.  A good number have moved away, with some of them leaving and returning (and even leaving again).  Some of them I have gotten closer to, though most of our friendships have settled at a co-worker’s distance.  Whatever existed nine years ago has in many ways changed.

And so what for me, nine years into this place and life?  No wedding bells, no little ones.  Lots of students.  Other friends from other moments in time here.  But also a sense that this world has moved on (like the world of Steven King’s Gunslinger, really).  I’m thankful for every good moment here, but I also know that yesterday’s manna won’t be much good today and certainly no good tomorrow.  I like where I am, love my job, am invested in my church.  Something has to change, though.  Not an arbitrary change, mind you, but something that can sustain me for the long haul, for the longer story.  I’m going to be teasing this notion out here over the next few days.  I’m even going to write some about how I’m being led to change even as I have no leading to change locale or vocation.  Feel free to chime in with comments as they come to mind.