Facing the Big Move

The following mediation was written by Doug Hood’s son, Nathanael Cameron Hood, a recent graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary.

There are few things I dislike more in life than moving. It’s not just that I dislike the boxing and the unboxing, the lifting and the sweating, the stress and the worry—although I very much do. For me, what I dislike the most is saying goodbye to old comforts and habits. Let me explain. During my last year at Princeton Theological Seminary, I lived in a wonderful room on the third floor of Brown Hall, a beautiful recently renovated dorm built in 1865. Located at the heart of the campus, the dorm was a fifteen-second walk from the cafeteria, a thirty-second walk from the main classroom building, and a ten-minute walk from Nassau Street—Princeton’s answer to New York City’s Time Square. I quickly became accustomed to these short walks for their convenience and beauty. In truth, I came to love them.

The room itself was small but large enough to accommodate an overworked student like myself. There, too, I became accustomed to its dimensions and came to love them—I loved how it was exactly seven steps from my bed to my private bathroom and less than one to my large wooden desk. I put an electric kettle for tea on the left side of the desk and sometimes—when deadlines were particularly brutal—a coffee pot on the right. Many were the days (and nights) when I would wrap myself in a blanket, sit in my chair, fire up the kettle and coffee pots, and read, study, and write for hours. Especially when soft rains or snow danced outside my window, my room became an introverted seminarian’s paradise.

But eventually, I had to say goodbye to Princeton, to the short walks I’d loved, the dorm room that became a hideaway, and the desk I’d whiled away so many afternoons and long weekends. I traded them all for an apartment in Brooklyn, where I would be spending the next year of my ministry. The move was stressful, but the hardest part was getting used to my new surroundings. Now, I had no desk, a bathroom down the hall, four roommates, and a twenty-minute walk to my new job. Small complaints, but for an introverted creature of habit like myself, they mattered.

The Book of Exodus also recounts the story of a significant move—the moving of the Hebrew people from Egypt to the Promised Land. Despite having escaped literal slavery, Exodus tells how the Hebrews quickly came to mourn their old habits and surroundings. Remember when we used to have meat and fresh vegetables, they whined. Remember how life was in the old days? There are many stories of God and Moses dealing with these complaints, but one of my favorites is the unusually specific instructions God gives for building the tabernacle, the holy ornaments, and the new priestly duties. Read in a certain light, it’s like God was giving a final response to the Hebrews’ mourning of their old lives with literal instructions for a new one. In time, the Jewish people would look back at this tabernacle as instrumental to their identity as God’s chosen people. The new had replaced the old. They just needed the courage and conviction to trust God and let go of the past. I can relate. Though I miss my old dorm, I’ve come to make my new apartment a home. I have new rituals for how I go about my days and nights, ones that I now dread leaving behind in a future move as much as I dreaded leaving my Princeton ones. And what’s more, I’m comforted knowing that I’m exactly where God needs me to be at this exact moment in my life. What could be better than that?

Joy,

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To read more meditations by Dr. Doug Hood and Nathanael Cameron Hood, you can purchase Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ from your favorite book seller.

Any royalties received support the ministry and mission of First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach.