Such beautiful colours,  just steps away from my front door. 

Hello wall, it’s been a while since I have seen you up close and personal.

I am an Intentional Interim Minister, working on specific goals with the two congregations in a Pastoral Charge and loving it. This fall, I have been so focused on completing a report that goes to the congregation next weekend, along with regular ministry responsibilities and fall activities starting up, that I was not eating right, not sleeping well and came dangerously close to responding inappropriately in a couple of situation due to my fatigue and my sense of time pressure.

And so, I hit a wall… but this time I did something different than continuing to plow away at my to do list. I admitted to myself and the Ministry and Personnel Committee that I  had been burning the candle at both ends, that I was tired in body, mind and spirit and with their blessing, I was going to an extra day off! I read, I puttered around the house and garden, and spent some time outdoors with my camera. I did nothing overtly spiritual, but my spirit was restored.

This morning, one of the members of the committee asked me how I was and I said that I was feeling refreshed and that ‘my soul had caught up with my body.’ His response was something like, “You should be sin free now.”

While we sort of chuckled about his comment, I realized that I had been guilty of a number of sins:

• the sin of thinking that it was all up to me
• the sin of not caring for myself as part of God’s creation
• the sin of busyness rather than tending to Sabbath
• and perhaps the primary one; the sin of putting my report at the centre instead of God

Tending to the holy and sacred in each of us is holy and sacred work, not to be reserved for that magical future when we have time.

And that’s my window on God’s world.