The Amity Board of Education is meeting as I write this. As a parent and a citizen, I would like to make it to as many board of education meetings as possible. It is difficult, because the board of education meets the same evening as the zoning board of appeals, which I serve as an alternate on. When I finish writing this, I will head off to the zoning board of appeals meeting. Fortunately, a third meeting for this evening was cancelled, but there are at least two other town meetings it would be good to be at.

Tuesday I have a tentative meeting scheduled for the evening. Wednesday, I have two conflicting meetings scheduled. Thursday, I hope to have a quiet evening, and then Friday I will head off to an important retreat in which I expect to explore in much greater depth what God is calling me to.

All of this is against a backdrop of the struggles of life. Today, I took the day off to go to my wife’s uncle’s funeral. We unexpectedly ran into a friend from church and a friend from town politics at the funeral. Yesterday, I received a phone call from one of my daughter’s that my ex-wife’s brother died unexpectedly last week, and also over the weekend a friend lost a well beloved animal companion.

Saturday and Sunday were filled up with family and church tasks and some tasks went unfinished.

When I got home from the funeral today, I took a long deep nap.

I checked my personal email, and did a bit of planning for the rest of the week. I checked my work email and decided that the burning issues of today can wait till I return to the office tomorrow.

I checked social media and saw this like that a friend had shared: Will this work make me sick?

Our discernment processes don’t often consider the physical sustainability of our work, but Christian leaders have a theological obligation to explore this question

This will go into my thoughts this weekend; the importance of self-care, of the Sabbath. It made me think of a poem that was read at the funeral, Flyer’s Prayer.

Did you see the rainbows, the rays of light?

Update: As I headed off to the meeting, I got a phone call from my eldest daughter and we talked briefly. When I got home, I watched a little Facebook livestream of Hillary on Broadway. SO, I’ve stayed up longer than I planned, but now, I need to head off to sleep.