In the beginning…

 I’m sure there are plenty of blogs with a first post titled something like “In the beginning…” I don’t expect that mine will necessarily stand out in the sea of blogs available to us all.  It’s just that I want to write.  I want to write about my experiences in parish ministry and COVID and retiring and how I got to this place.

I have known I want to write about this for quite some time. In July I spoke with my friend Sandhya Jha about the possibility of writing a book from the perspective of being a pastor during the COVID lockdown and its aftermath.  She was quite encouraging.  Then came the months of preparing to retire, getting the congregation as ready as possible for my leaving, finding a place to live, moving out of the Parsonage and into the apartment, and so much more.  So very busy!  So very little writing getting done outside of sermons and such.  I know that if I want to write seriously I needed to write daily, so I got an app that supplies a daily writing prompt. THAT was a disappointment.   How am I seriously supposed to write more than a few lines when the prompt is “List 5 things you like to do.”  Feeling a bit discouraged, I continued to respond to the prompts but rarely had much to say.  Then came my last Sunday at the church, lunch with clergy friends, and a gift of the “YOU are a BADASS” calendar.  When I looked at this morning’s calendar page I was ready to start a conversation with it.  And so this blog was born. 

I retired 6 days ago.  Today is the Feast of the Epiphany.  It seems to me that this is the perfect day to begin a new thing.  And so I shall begin . . . 

“An excuse is simply a challenge that you’ve decided has power over you.”  Well, yes.  If I say I can’t because I don’t know how, I know that can learn how if I want to.  If I say I can’t because I am afraid, I know that I can ask someone to do the thing with me the first time so that I am not alone with my fear.  If I say I can’t because it causes physical pain, that might be an actual reason more than an excuse.  Pain is intended to let us know that something is wrong, and that old joke, “Doc, it hurts when I do this . . Then don’t do that!” isn’t really a joke.   

And then there are the excuses I use when the real reason is simply I don’t want to.

It’s hard to tell someone “I don’t want to.” It’s right up there with saying no.  I want to help. I want to please people. (Yes, I went there!)  But sometimes I just don’t want to do the whatever I’ve been asked to do, so instead of honestly saying that I make up some excuse or other. I have gotten a teeny tiny bit better at saying No, but still have ways to go in the getting honest about why I choose not to do a thing.  I suppose that this is something I need to put on my increasingly long List of Things I Want to do in Retirement.  Go the zoo, do touristy things, get honest about not wanting to do things. . .

So it begins. Sometimes I will respond to the BADASS Calendar.  Sometimes I will write about what is going on in this adventure called retirement.  Sometimes it just might be random thoughts.  I dunno.  But whatever this turns out to be you are invited to come along for the ride.