Here, have a sunrise, because it’s an awesome metaphor for beginning again.
My plan in starting this blog was to write one every week until we moved to Portland and then to write at least weekly or more often as things progressed. It has been many weeks since my last entry. Part of it is I sort of fell apart at the end of Holy Week. Apparently writing 7 worship services in one week while preparing to travel internationally on Easter is my breaking point. It’s good to know. Then we were in Scotland for 3 weeks for my cousin’s wedding. So not writing then was a totally legit excuse, but we’ve been back now for a while. Almost a month actually. In that time I’ve written several blogs, but none have made it to the website because I’ve found them flat and maybe more than a little dull.
I could blame my manuscription mediocrity on transition. Our house is filling up with boxes, as is my office. We’re packing our days with lunches and dinners with friends, trying to soak in every last ounce of this chapter of our lives before a new one begins. I could blame it on feeling disconnected, which is definitely happening. I know psychologically it’s natural to start to distance yourself when a leave taking is in the offing. I’m tired of church, of rotary meetings, of our bedroom wall color. All things I actually love. This tiredness is just my brain making sure that moving is a safe change for me. I’m also more than a little nostalgic as it’s been the child’s birthday this week. That has led to reflecting on how things were when we moved here and on what has happened and what hasn’t which is more than a little distracting. It also feels a bit like we’ve been waiting forever to get going. 17 years considering ordained ministry. 9 years talking about new start ministry. 4 months planning for this move.
I know however the real reason I haven’t been writing anything good, or probably more likely, why I have been finding fault with everything I write, is that this moment is overwhelming. We are in this amazing holy space between one thing and the next. I’m stepping from being the pastor of a stable mid-sized church to having two appointments, one of which is a community that doesn’t actually exist yet. We’re leaving a small rural town filled with people we love for a busy street in the largest city in the state where we have a few acquaintances and pals. Nothing I’ve written is worthy of the magnitude of this time in our lives. And what I’ve come to realize is that’s okay. What I do is never going to quite capture the holy adventure of this life, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try. Which is actually exactly why we’ve found the courage to do this new church start in the first place.
So I’m back to blogging weekly. As I’ve learned from my own spiritual practices if I don’t take the first step I’ll never get beyond the place where I am now and what a terrible thing that would be. God has so much in store for us, if we only just begin.
But you need to begin with fudge. Seriously, though, this is lovely… it is in the twilight, in-between spaces we find the holy and the silence to know who we are and where we're going. I like to think of it as a magic pause button to remind you of what you treasure. You're doing a wonderful job my friend! So excited to see what's over that horizon for you three~