to rochester and back.

Forgetting the fact that I need to walk home [across the parking lot] and write two sermons, today was a good day.  A good, good day and positive ending to – frankly – a crappy week.

I’ve felt completely under water this week.  Completely.  No way around it – transition is hard.  I finally broke yesterday and cried in Marilyn’s office.  While part of me shames myself for showing such emotion, people should know that I’m not a rock.  I’m not void of feeling.  I cry too.  And so the church admin assistant now knows.

Today was a good day likely because I let myself breathe and it was a day of reflection.  [In a phone call I just made to another local pastor, she reminded me that I must take time to process and reflect.  That, in itself, is a way of working and necessary, especially as an internal processor.]  I picked jD and Paige up in Owatonna at 8am this morning and we headed to the synod offices in Rochester for a first-call theological event.  Today’s topic: taxes and pensions.  [Just knowing that makes you wish you were there, right?]  It was actually quite interesting and good stuff to learn in these first couple weeks.  

But really, what was awesome about the day was the conversation to and from and the conversation there.    The southeastern MN synod staff is beyond awesome, and the other first-call colleagues seem pretty top drawer too.  Bishop Huck led us in devotions and during that time, I felt my anxiety melt.  He has such a way of speaking and of comfort that those were words of gospel I needed to hear.  He reminded us that we don’t need to have all the answers.  Thank you.

Delicious red pepper soup for lunch and more laughing and conversation with colleagues was great.  Paige and I also signed up for the Bishop’s Open.  Yes, a golf tournament.  We’re not going to golf but rather put our names in to be caddies.  We’re not sure they will accept us as caddies but we think it will be a fun place to be on Monday, September 26th.  It’s an event only for clergy, hosted by the bishop, so it will be a day of collegiality and dinner if nothing else.  jD is going to do it too but I think he’ll actually golf.  The synod must think the three of us go everywhere and do everything together.  [I celebrate that fact!]  We should probably have a gang name.

Speaking of our gang, it seems jD and Paige have also met some young morticians in their local funeral homes.  Plans of a new pastor and mortician game night are in the works.  Pastors and funeral people make great friends, or so I’m told.