Investigating a Call That Has Given me Pause

My trip to Wartburg was awesome in every possible way. Friday night I talked to CC the entire way to the airport and then for about an hour while I sat in the New Belgium bar waiting for my flight. This fact is notable because it set the stage for the rest of the weekend - when I wasn't flying, sleeping or in a session at the conference (and sometimes even when I was), I talked to or texted CC. He helped me process the whole thing real-time. It was like hand-holding in spirit. ANYWAY, my flight was a breeze (I journaled for its duration) and I slept like a baby once I finally got to my hotel at 2am.

The next three days were full of conference sessions - large and small group stuff, campus tours, cafeteria meals and epic amounts of REALLY REALLY BAD coffee. As I said, the weekend was phenomenal, and there are three points I'd like to make about it:
1. Reverend Doctor Winston Persaud: He gave the keynote speech and it really struck me. He opened by opining about God's sense of humor, which is something I've thought a lot about lately. I took notes during his short time in front of us. He used cricket as an analogy for our faith - "You need a partner to score runs! You see how theologically sound the game is?!" - and gave thanks that God had brought us all together that weekend because we were each "investigating a call that had given us pause." (I love that line.) He also said that "Systematic Theology is a very easy subject, but the thing is this: it has some very tantalizing challenges." The man is a genius, and if I were afforded the opportunity to follow him around and soak up his little thoughts on faith I would be forever grateful.
2. The people at Wartburg: no one will be surprised when I say I'm not wild about the idea of attending a school in Dubuque. Growing up in Fort Collins has spoiled me, and spending a year in Aspen is only going to make things worse. That said, I would enroll there solely for the people I met on my trip. I seriously bonded with the 20-some-odd other conference attendees, and that's nothing compared to the friends I made who are current students. I came home with, like, 30 new Facebook friends, which is a petty but simple way of depicting how closely I want to keep in touch with these people. At one point before I headed home, three students - JR, JB & EK - "kidnapped" me and took me to Starbucks before one of their classes. I was pumped; I felt like, "Wait, you mean these people want to hang out with me even though they're not forced to do so as part of the conference?"3. The call: the conference exponentially aided my discernment process in a million ways, but one particular breakout session kick-started my thinking about both my external and internal calls. I made lists of both. Perhaps later I'll go into more detail about why each bullet is important.
EXTERNAL CALL:
-the job offer at El Camino Pines
-Pastor JG on the hike at Sky Ranch (in maybe 2003) telling me that if I ever decided that medicine wasn't for me, I should seriously consider ministry
-the girls in my small group at church telling me (over and over and over) that I should go to seminary instead of medical school
-MU saying (back when we were dating during sophomore year of high school) that "WOW, heaven must really be incredible" given my thoughts on it
-AJS telling me that he always "just knew" I was supposed to go to seminary
INTERNAL CALL:
-talking with RC late into the night in the staff lounge this summer
-all of my "little siblings": CF, AB, KH, CU, EZ, SM, SB, etc
-feeling like I could be a better teacher than most of my college profs (my exact thoughts being, "I can do better.")
-being miserable both at CU and living in the Cairns House
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During worship on Sunday morning, we sang a song called "Canticle of the Turning," and the words of the second verse are still in my head -
Though I am small, my God, my all, you work great things in me/And your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be...for the world is about to turn.