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moving once agian

Have you ever noticed that sometimes life just sweeps you away. Thats been my summer, I've been swept away by many things and like when the tide sweeps something away at some point it will deposit it back maybe where it came from or in some new place. Well my summer has been mostly challenging working in the North its not a experience I would get rid of in a hurry. Today I find myself not near Durham but back in the flat grounds of Norfolk, I've come here for the last time. The tide has once again swept me up in to the all familiar task of packing up bags and boxes -the sound track of my summer having moved most weekends to a different host. Hopefully this will be the last time for sometime as I start my own home. My own flat close to my new job in a new country - yes I'm being dramatic as it is only Wales, but everyone loves a bit of Drama!

Personally I hate packing. If theres one thing to destroy me as a person its packing. Once again moving to a new place with all the difficulties and hurdles to overcome, the challenges and excitement, the opportunity... packing may symbolise that new start and hope mixed with the anxiety, but for me packing means we have to work out what memories we take with us, what parts of ourselves do we leave behind. How much of our own legacy do we allow to dictate its way into the new present. What do I have to leave behind.

It would be easier to not pack anything up and leave my family home with nothing however that will not help me. What about the many resources I have, the comfort in familiarity in a new place and the terrible impression I would leave on my family. More to the point I like the stuff that I have accumulated, received, collected and found. I just hate that it has to be packed up in a box. It always makes me wonder how much stuff do we store, in terms of negative thoughts, a self destroying image perhaps, the weight of bullies, broken hearts broken friendships, that we could give up and leave behind.

Having grown up in a family that moved a lot I'm not stranger to having unpacked boxes from the house move 3-5 years previously. I don't want that.

New creation, new beginning but I still want something of the old? It applies to the house as much as an individual. As a person going into a new place I could be anyone... how much will be new - as I have a new part to my identity under the job role and how much will stay?

What does this mean theologically as we are transformed into a new creation in Christ how do we tie that in with who we where and who we are to be in Christ? 

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