Reunion and re-engagement

Here are a mess of photos to show you some of my family, and views of the beach cabin my parents have been renting for twenty-five years. I miss it there already. You can see the light from the sunset over the lake coming in through the windows.

It was a great week, although it's also tiring to hang out with twenty of your relatives for a whole week. But I got a lot of sun, swimming, good food, walking, and loafing in. But even so, I came home feeling sort of sad about my continued unemployment. It didn't help that I had to leave my cat with my parents in Michigan because my brother's car was overloaded on our trip back (my parents are staying on for another two weeks). So I'm home alone! No Lilith. It's very strange not to have a little cat following me around all the time, or waking me up at 6am for a back rub, or reminding me that her bowl is empty.

So, I was feeling sad and useless and lonely. But then I got a call from out junior warden at St. John's - the church where I'm deaconing to keep myself out of trouble this summer (near Irving Park and the Kennedy, if anyone wants to know). One of our elderly members died Friday night, and it looks like I might be doing the funeral, because Kara, the priest, is away on vacation. Wow. I suddenly feel very official. I'm going to give the family a call back tonight to see how they're doing. I feel so hungry to be helpful. Even if that means I get swamped this week - I'm preaching on Sunday, too, and I have a bishop's search committee meeting almost all day Saturday, and Adam is coming to visit. Suddenly, everything seems more like real life than a sabbatical. It's great. Things are MOVING.

I also had a long, great talk at church today with a woman who's elderly mom also died last week, and had a lot of other, really good conversations with various people. I felt like I knew what I was doing - during worship and during coffee hour. I felt a little like I used to feel on Sunday mornings at the Monterey Church, back when I was their lay pastor, six years ago.

It's nice to feel like a pastor again.