Monday Morning

A couple of weeks back I had kind of a crash landing from vacation back into parish life.  A wedding, a memorial, a communion service and a board meeting all within 30 hours. Then Monday morning came, and I sat at my dining room table in an empty house with a cup of hot coffee and fresh local peaches sliced over cereal reading a novel. "Ah" I thought "how lovely this moment of peace to balance the intensity of ministry" I wrote a note to myself  "blog this." Surely Monday morning is to a preacher a quiet moment of Sabbath.

This Monday morning, today,  I rose with sore muscles from a weekend of moving furniture and debris out of our flooded church basement.  I am reading Holmgren in preparation for Sunday's sermon instead of my now neglected novel. My mind races with e-mails to be sent - will power be back to the church neighborhood in time for this week's classes and meetings? Will we have to end early to meet the National Guard curfew? Did we decide what would happen to those old windows still stacked in the basement? I wonder about all those volunteers I left busy at the church when I started the long drive home yesterday. Even so, the warmth of coffee, the late-season peach cut over my cereal. A quiet house. Gratitude.