I had forgotten

I had forgotten how quiet it can be out here in the field when you are alone here. I'm almost never out here by myself so today with Lauralea out in Ontario and Micah at school, the silence is everywhere.

Well, except for that moment while while I was on the toilet and in the greater distance heard a radio station playing top forty country tunes, and then some metal clanging and banging. When I walked out to get the mail I saw that the highways lawnmower tractor had broken down in the gravel right in front of the church.

But yes as I was pondering, the solitude.

For me it's not an oppressive thing. In fact it seems to have an opposite effect, opening up before me, creating energizing space for me to enter into and just be myself. I don't have to contort myself to be something I'm not, or try to fit other peoples expectations of me. I simply can be me. That energizes me and heals me in ways that just being quiet in a loud room, can't.

It's good for me right now. Getting the Autumn program with it's small groups and Sunday School and Youth Programs and sermons and on and on, getting it all up and running has taken lots of good energy this year.  Small free moments are stolen for quick calls and emails and connections, so the allotted time given each one of us is quickly filled up.

Days like this give me a chance to exhale again, and inhale space and energy and hope and, well, life I suppose.

So I'm here in my office getting it done. Emails, calls, the report for the Deacon meeting tonight. Then service plans for the weekend and Sunday. Then getting my class prepped for and looking at that sermon series again.

But on days like today it all doesn't feel so overwhelming. I can do this.

I also need to take some more time praying for this place. The harvest is being delayed as the cold, wet weather lingers on. The pressures on the farmers starts to show as they putter around running out of putter-y things to do. And they wait and wait and wait to work.

One year it's drought, the next it's rain, then cold, then infestations and disease. For all the cherries to line up in a row seems such a rare occurrence. They are a relatively humble bunch for they can do only what they can do, and the rest is out of their hands.

And I can do only what I can do, so I pray. The rest is out of my hands.