Home Again

I am back at work starting Monday.  There is a long list of tasks waiting for me.  There are the emails and phone calls that have piled up.  Also there is planning to do both for the end of summer services and the beginning of "regular" church in the fall.

Of course, I am coming off my annual trip to Maine.  We stay at our "camp" on Lake George, which divides the towns of Canaan and Skowhegan.   Our time at the camp is important to us.  We reconnect with each other.  Of course, we reconnect with more than that.  There is something supernatural about a natural world that pushes in on you in a way that it cannot in the 'Burbs.  The glories of Creation surround you like the water in the lake.  They hold you up. 

 The trick with vacation is to find a way to bring it with you.  After the more stately pace of  "rusticating" while visiting friends and family, the return to the general chaos of Burbanian life can be a let down of cosmic proportions.  If I look down while jumping off the dock (a mere fantasy this year as we never got the dock in) I can see the splash my feet make before the rest of me reaches the water.  That is where I am right now.  I am in the air, looking for the splash.

Still, time does not wait.  The boys received their homeroom assignments.  This includes Norm, of course, who will be returning to structured education after his "sabbatical" year.  We are all excited.  It is an important year for the church, too.  Customarily the year after a sabbatical is one of increased energy and opportunity for everyone.  A vision for the future becomes more clear.  The plans and dreams of a year ago become altered into some new reality.

Here's to all of you waiting for the splash of Autumn.  I pray that it goes well for you.

Here is part of a very long prayer from Theodore Parker

O thou who knowest what all time shall bring forth, we cast our eyes forward, and though every day is hidden in darkness before our eyes, we pray thee that there may be such light within our heart, that it shall make it all glorious light about us, from hour to hour, and in strength that thou givest us we may do the appointed duty of each day, and reverently bear its cross, and so fill up our time with thy service.