Time

It has been a long time since I wrote, dear friends. (I know, what else is new). Finishing up a master's degree will do that to you. Post-graduation, the time-organizing principle of surviving one-semester-at-a-time, which has anchored me for the past six years, has evaporated. It was time for something new. Since I've never gotten the hang of the whole sabbath thing, something else was required.

This summer, the organizing principle has become Sunday-to-Sunday, but not because of sabbath time. I'm serving a local church for a season, remembering the weekly rhythm I had picked up during my field placement. When the Congregation West-of-Town said they'd like me to fill in this summer while their pastor was on sabbatical, I said yes. I jumped at the chance to go swimming in scripture again. I looked forward to the opportunity to get to know the community. And so I slipped into a weekly rhythm, reading-study-writing-visiting-preaching, that feels comfortable and good.

Ten weeks down; three weeks and four Sundays and one Communion service left. My car knows the road here, and I know precisely how much time to budget for the drive. Time passes in ways that I cannot budget or account for, only observe. The prairie outside the office window changes week by week. The baby swallows nesting in the carport are growing; mama sparrow doesn't divebomb me anymore when I walk into the building.

This summer with Congregation-West-of-Town has been God time and God space. It's a little pocket set aside from my usual busy go-go pace for a different kind of busy, a different kind of important. I have appreciated my little sparrow's nest out here in the country. Thanks be to the God who organizes time, who shelters us under a protecting wing, whose priorities are far better than our own.