Jan. 5th, 2012

beachlass: angel from Constantine, looking surprised (Oh!)
Yesterday morning I woke up and had bouts of dizziness. (No idea why, and eventually they went away on their own). I had diligently left my To Do List on the desk in my office, and after some discernment and a caring (and requested) twitter scolding from [personal profile] anatsuno , I stayed at home to work. But my list was on my desk! My liturgical books were in my study!

I had to write the service without my favorite books of prayers, and in doing so discovered a liturgical blog by one of the new-ish twitter people in my circle. And I had a limited stack of books on the 'church' shelf in my kitchen.
[Digression - a couple of years ago, I sequestered a section of the kitchen shelving to hold books that had migrated from the church to the house, and am so grateful I did so... I lose far less work these days, spend less time searching for books, now that I have a place to put them at home. And when the shelf is over-full, it reminds me to take some back to the office.]
 
I pulled out Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church, and have read the whole thing in 24 hours. This is and isn't surprising - I love reading, but I'm a magpie reader at work, tending to read chapters here and there, depending on my focus for the day or week, and often abandon a book partway through. 

Taylor's book is an account of settling into a wonderful parish in Georgia, and then leaving it. It's not quite a story of burn out, because her reflections move beyond that and into questioning the whole practice of priesthood and church life. She reflects on power and busy-ness and liturgical practice, and has left me with some good questions about clerical role and identity and the intersections with church structure and congregational life. 

I just... haven't quite formed the questions yet. 

But I'm reminded that a few times recently, I've come across references to the yearning for uninterrupted time; for silent retreat, or an hour of creative writing space, and the wisdom by early monastics that we bring our own distractions even into our cell of seclusion. I was reminded of it this morning, checking my twitter feed between chapters in my reading - for no good reason. Reminded when Brown talks about her initial panic when she face her first day of not doing a hundred things. 

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