Back to Blogging

Finally, I’m feeling settled enough to start blogging again! I forget, from year to year, just how long it takes to unpack after a move, and how UNsettled it feels during the process. Happily, I’m a bit ahead of schedule compared to other moves. It doesn’t hurt that my decision in 2006 to enter a religious community led to a significant paring down of books, clothes, files, etc. Two years later, that paring has enabled me to fit into a two-room condo, whereas before going to community I occupied a small parsonage.

The settling-in process got a boost, at least as far as blogging is concerned, when my attempts to get home Internet service finally bore fruit. I’m now sitting with my laptop in a big comfy chair, watching the sun pour through the red-tinged leaves in the woods behind my building (this has been a great year for foliage!), and figuring out what I want to write.

The main thing is that I’m truly grateful to be back in parish ministry! I did need a break from it, I realize now, and going to CHS gave me the chance for a sabbatical. What surprises me now is how little I miss CHS, though I hold many of the sisters in great affection. It’s as though my memory has put parentheses around the whole experience, making it a small blip on the scope of my life. When a memory does slip though, it tends to catch me up in wonderment: Did I really do that for two years?

Not that the experience hasn’t changed me. Something within those parentheses holds power! Although the extent of the changes remains to be seen, I can tell that an inner shift has taken place, a rearrangement of priorities. Some things that seemed incredibly important three years ago are insignificant now, while others things are coming to the fore. I suspect that unpacking all THAT will take longer than unpacking the boxes has done.