How can three simple letters buried on a page inside a modest publication signal a life-altering shift in a person’s journey – into a future set to unfold some nine thousand miles away? And, in ‘spaces’ unlike any lived in before?
(*correction, ISI is not three letters, only two. One of them just gets more press!)
When big shifts occur in a person’s life, we sometimes find ourselves transported into new and different zones. They could be occupational or geographical or whatever. We might respond to any of these shifts with feelings of excitement, trepidation, enthusiasm or awe. The shift in my case included a physical relocation. My feelings tended to signal puzzlement.
If we could reduce to a single word the big turning points in our lives the term threshold might fit well.
Threshold – a place of beginning, a doorway, or brink.
At the time of spotting the letters, I S I, on the page of the quarterly publication those years ago, I could never have imagined their import. After all, the offices of International Students Inc were sat nestled in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. My home lay in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro.
Beyond the range of my understanding, a hint at an approaching shift with life-altering turns was signaling from that one page of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly lying open atop a small table before me.
Setting the magazine aside, my thoughts pivoted.
Dad had fallen gravely ill in Oklahoma. I had a plane to catch.
©2023 Jerry Lout