At the Beginning.

Every beginning has an end.

Every ending once began.

It’s bittersweet, usually.

But sometimes it is just bitter. Or just sweet.

Life is a never-ending cycle of beginnings and ends.

Some of these begins and ends just happen, usually with no regard to our wishes. A dear person dies, a child is born, you are fired or a car dies.

Other begins and ends are chosen. New year’s resolutions, a new home and school, a study abroad or relationships.

But here’s the thing, all of our lives are made up of beginnings and ends-even every second is beginning and ending, technically. But the clincher is how we respond to these beginnings and ends. It really defines a person, and makes them who they are. I would hypothesize {a word that I HATE because psychologists love it, not that I hate psychologists…but just…ask me later} that people who are continually embracing the endings and beginnings of life are happier. Maybe they even live longer and have lower rates of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease and yadda yadda.

I am sure they live each beginning and each end as if it were an opportunity to make something great. To change for the better. To learn something the hard way and wait for that to help them and make them stronger. They are willing to let something end, because it was so good while it lasted.

They let life be and just enjoy it.

What began me thinking about beginnings and ends was Jerusalem.

Nobody, except one, will ever understand what happened to me there. How incredible that opportunity was, how much was learned, how much changed within me. I learned of the Holy Land while in the Holy Land and trust me, you bring the Holy Land back with you. Nearing the end, this particular end, was one of those bitter sweet moments. All I wanted to do was be one of those people I just described; I wanted to let it end because it had been so good while it lasted. I was ecstatic to go home, and yet I knew that after two days I would be longing for what I had come to consider my home-the JC, the Old City, West J, and especially Galilee.

And then I came home and I didn’t cry and I didn’t long for my home. I missed it constantly or rather I miss it constantly, but I remembered what I learned and that was good enough.

I had chosen my lifelong theme scripture and it was:

To become a “Witness of these things among all nations…beginning at Jerusalem.” (Luke 24: 47-48) And I was following through and it was incredible.

So…why this exceptionally long speech/rant/discourse/communication?

Well, last semester was full of forgetting and focusing on an ending rather than what I had claimed, and even knew, was a beginning.

And thus. This semester is the beginning of making anew the beginning that began months ago on a seemingly insignificant hill that would later be called the Mount of Beatitudes where a carpenter’s son gave a sermon.

And so I say, Oh Jerusalem, if I forget thee…

This is the Mount of Beatitudes. I used to be disappointed that my camera's exposure was set completely wrong on the most important day of the summer. But I've realized that I don't need to remember what it looks like, but rather what I felt like. And I remember that perfectly.