I very recently replaced my beloved, ancient, very simple cell phone with, yes, a Blackberry, mostly to have an easier way to check email.

I am in that early blush of the relationship here, mostly looking at it with wonder, as I figure out how it does what.

So far my favorite, and most useful, button is one that looks like a U-turn, and lets you go back to the page, or function, you were on previously. And then go back to where you were before that. And the one before that.  Deeply reassuring, this.  Quick re-orientation and un-doing. Also very un-Biblical.

I'm remembering how many times Scripture tells us, er, sorry, but off you go -- into the future. No reverting:

"Behold, I am doing a new thing; do you not perceive it" rings out at us from Isaiah.

Abraham was told to leave home, and to set out, unknowing. When Jesus said “Follow me,” the fishermen dropped their nets -- not because their work was over, or they were planning on leaving what they knew, but because a most compelling change was not just afoot, but right there in front of them. When they followed, there was no U-turn button.

I recently heard a woman describe such a moment. She has painstakingly, and brilliantly, built up a counseling practice over many years, only to now heed a call to leave it and run a retreat center whose future is no sure bet. She quoted part of this poem by the astute poet David Whyte.

In this high place
it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.

Ah, yes, those "simple" moments, when the choice is clear, but the consequences are huge, the future unknown, and the promise is -- great.

Here are the two extremes:  Leaving everything with no going back, and the very human desire to regress, to go back, to look for the U-turn button in our psyches. The message in our faith is clear… we are pilgrim people, called to new life, and called to bring others to new life. (That new life begins with Baptism, a sacrament of the church that will be beautifully and brilliantly explored this Sunday at the 1:30 Adult Education class by Rev. David Lewicki. Be sure to come or watch online.)

The winds of change that the church season of Pentecost represents will be with us all summer. We know phones come with "revert" buttons. In your heart is a "go forward" button. Where is it leading you, and what prayer (or hope, or fear)  accompanies this call into new life?