gifts of limitation
Jan. 5th, 2012 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beachlassYesterday 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 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.
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.
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.
