Musings At The Beginning Of The Week

Yesterday this blog turned two years old. For the last six months it has been private--only those invited people may read it, for reasons I've written about before. After I took it private, I posted to it much less frequently, but for the past five weeks or so, I've been writing fairly regularly. Last Thursday I wrote my 400th post. It becomes a discipline, writing regularly, that is. It forces me to organize thoughts and write clearly (I hope) to communicate what I've been thinking about.

Last week was the beginning of my attempt to return to Eat Right 4 Your Type. A few years ago Mom and I followed the program for a while. I felt pretty good when I followed it, and I'm not sure why I stopped. This time I figured I'd move back to it gradually, starting with wheat and dairy. I did pretty well until Friday. This weekend has been a disaster food-wise. But I did manage four-and-a-half days. Maybe this week I can do five, or even six. It's a start.

The other thing that FINALLY sank in this week is that I have to exercise in the evening. I keep telling myself I'm going to get up in the morning early enough to do it before leaving for work. What part of I'm not a morning person don't I understand? (A friend of mine gave me a button that reads "Not a morning person... Doesn't even begin to cover it!") To make a schedule that includes exercise in the morning just sets me up for failure. A half hour exercising most evenings isn't going to kill me. In fact, it's going to do just the opposite.

Late this afternoon I went to the Barnes & Noble in Westport. I browsed, did some research on a project I'm working on, and then spent the evening in the Cafe reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, which a friend recommended I read. I've never been fond of Card's writing. I started two or three of his novels and put them down after a chapter or two. For some reason Ender's Game gripped me. There were so many things that I wanted to note that I ended up buying a copy along with one of those little Hold That Thought! packets of sticky notes. Sermon and blog fodder perhaps...

This morning my Discernment Committee met for the last time with me. They will meet next week to decide whether they feel I have a call to ordained ministry. I have been truly blessed by this group, and I asked, if their decision is that I am not so called, that they consider continuing to meet with me to determine what it is I am being called into. I was deeply touched when they said that they would continue to support me with group meetings no matter what the outcome of their deliberations was. More than that, we discussed meeting as an ongoing group simply because we have all learned much about each other and ourselves during our conversations, becoming a community of faith ("emergent church" anyone?). We also discovered a common interest in genealogy and are seriously considering starting a group that might meet at Grace Church.

Tomorrow those of us employed at the Episcopal Church Center will hopefully get some kind of indication of the direction the 2010-2012 Triennial budget is taking. By the time we get through General Convention, we will have been involved in the budgeting process for about a year. There has to be an easier way to do this, but then I'm not in charge, and it's hard to change an institution!

Peace,
Jeff
(10)