I’m BAAAACCCCKKKKKKK (said in my best Terminator voice). I’m so grateful for a congregation that understands that ministry is more than just a job and that gives me ample vacation and study time to regroup, recharge, and plan. My summer was filled with some wonderful family time at a lake in Indiana and a great week as the Camp Minister at Camp deBenneville Pines for Senior High Camp. Both of those were in cooler temperatures and surrounded by nature which fills my spirit with joy.
The last couple of weeks, I have had a planning retreat with some of our staff and am preparing for planning retreats with our Board. I am excited about our sermon series on our new UU Values and some creative ways we plan to build community together this year.
In the meantime, I hope you have had some time to take care of yourself in this heat and maybe to rest and recharge yourself–a privilege that not all of us have. It is an act of resistance to our culture that tells us that we always need to be doing something to just sit and be.
To reinforce that, I leave you with the words of May Sarton, from her Journal of a Solitude.
“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”