Tuesday, June 30, 2009

That Balance Thing

I'm starting to feel like a blogger slug. I write posts in my head, or at least I begin them. But for one reason or another, they never make it here. One of the reasons is time. There is, it seems, never enough for all the things of life. And the strange thing is, I am doing so much less than I used to! When I think back to those Energizer Bunny days when I taught at the college, overfunctioned wildly as a priest, and seemed to think I needed to put in an extra ten or so hours a week here at the day job, I am not sure how I did it or what I was operating on. Fumes would be a good guess. By comparison these days it seems I am doing very little. I come to work at six-thirty or seven and am usually out the door at five. Most days I do not work through lunch. My sermon writing is done in the early mornings or in the spaces afforded me in my days, not in long Saturday marathons. Sometimes there are community or church commitements, but for the most part, evenings are spent in some sort of personal pursuit, either the necessary activites of keeping body and soul together, a house running, my pets content or, better still, doing something good and wonderfully restorative....with R, with my Soul Sisters or other friends, or even alone.

But in the midst of this, blogging, and writing in general have slid a bit. I don't mean to ignore my virtual friends. This balance thing is challenging and I have never seemed t0 be able to get the hang of quite how to do it. House, yard, church , pets, shopping, tending, people, writing, meeting, working, doing, being, seeing.....*sigh*

When I was a kid I fell off the teeter totter in the park and whacked my head. I didn't have a whole lot better luck with the horse. Yep. Balance. It has always been a challenge.

5 comments:

Ivy said...

Yes it is about the balance thing. I find myself in much the same place. I thought I'd have all kinds of time in CPE compared to the seminary year, but it's emotionally exhausting. I too, am writing in my head, but most of my writing needs to be for the weekly devotions, Bible study, journal, verbatims etc. that I'm responsible for.

Peace.

Anonymous said...

maybe you are actually sleeping and practicing good self-care now also... always happy to read when you do have time and energy to write!

Rev SS said...

*tee hee* I understand ... my posts are less frequent these days too. Just stay in touch when you can, 'k?

mid-life rookie said...

Balance - I think I've mentioned this in an earlier comment - but I've been reading a devotional book by Bishop Robert Schnase called "Balancing Act." It's been perfect for where I am in church leadership and personally. The very first devotional was hugely freeing for me. It talked about how the tightrope walker is never balanced, rather always balancing with slight adjustments. Schnase notes that we too will never be balanced but we can always be working at balancing. Wow - that was such a relief to me who has always thought I ought to be able to get this right at some point in my life. The way I see it, Schnase says I'm getting it right if I'm working at balancing all the demands in my life, not if I've got is all perfectly yet precariously balanced. Trying to maintain that particular state means something is going to fall out of balance sooner or later. Something is going to hit the floor. If I'm balancing, I may be a bit wobbly, but I am upright!

Di McCullough said...

xoxo. Yes, I get this.
-Mrs. M