Today has been a really interesting day. I felt very "priestly" as I did some rewarding ministry. It started off with my usual Wednesday morning Contemplative Eucharist. Because all the prayers are extemporaneous, it requires a lot of contemplative focus to be in the right moment. You really have to be "right" with the Spirit to do it well, and I find the spiritual challenge of that both exhilarating and humbling.
After that I said morning prayer by myself and did some administrative tasks. Then I had back-to-back counseling sessions that turned out to be Spirit-full and rewarding. I certainly wouldn't say that the Holy Spirit was absent from my life when I was on leave, but She was usually veiled a bit. But when you are working with someone one-on-one on deep spiritual issues sometimes you get this sense of presence that is wonderful. Those kinds of moments in counseling/direction give me such joy and consolation. Occasional moments like I had today are more than enough affirmation of my ministry to sustain me for some time.
Nor does it hurt to have the sense of making progress with the Administrative load I have to bear. Last night we had an NCD--Natural Church Development--planning meeting that went well. I think NCD will be be helpful as we figure out where to go, strategically and operationally. Today I submitted some paperwork for reimbursement for some of my retreat expenses from the summer (Anglican Priests in Canada have a nationally-managed continuing education fund). We are on track to print the latest edition of the resurrected parish newsletter this week. The staff meeting yesterday was very productive. Etc., etc. I'm crossing things off the to-do list and it feels great.
The perfect end is going to come in a few hours as I go sailing. The prediction is for strong winds, so we expect a challenging and exciting race. Last week's strong winds caused the fore-stay to let loose, which could have brought the whole mast down. Fast action saved the rigging and the repair turned out to be straight forward. One of the nice things about racing a Catalina '27 is that she has some extra margins of durability in the design. Many other boats would have lost their masts immediately if the fore-stay broke, but a little bit of redundancy in the rigging design of the Catalina '27 gave us enough time to jury-rig a temporary fix and limp back into port. So we are excited to give her another go.
Henry is doing great. He crawls all over the place, now, which means he must be constantly watched unless we have him in his crib or a pack-n-play. The living room has mostly been turned into a baby-safe zone, but now we need some barriers to keep him in there. He has figured out that he can easily and quickly crawl from the living room to the kitchen. Several times I've caught him just in time as he grabbed a handful of cat food. I think his look of delight on reaching the cat bowls would change to confusion if he managed to shove the pellets into his mouth.
Life is grand. Today is a good day.
-t
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