Barefoot Bellringing

Sundays are generally busy days in Church Land. For some reason or other, I don’t ever seem to sleep well Saturday night, no matter how well, or poorly I’m prepared for Sunday. Today was no exception. I woke with the alarm, but didn’t get out of bed for half an hour.

Showered, dressed, walked to church and began walking through my homily. You see, when I write my homilies, they take the better part of a week and very little actually gets written down. Starting on Monday morning I review the readings for the week and go back to them at least once a day. I look at commentaries, meditate on the word and see if there’s a common thread or where the Holy Spirit is guiding me.

By the time I get to Sunday morning I’ve said my homily, aloud, at least three times. Sunday morning I try to polish what I have and make sure the phrasing is coherent.

This mornings homily went over really well. Worship as a whole was awesome and I left the church happily exhausted. I got home, and looked at my chores list…it was huge. I got changed, had a cold drink and tackled some of the list. After about an hour and a half I decided I’d done enough and headed out to do some shopping. I know, I know, it’s Sunday.

Came home with my purchases and put them away, pleased with what I’d been able to buy. I sat down to read and hit the wall. My body hurt, my head was ringing, I’d been clenching my jaw and realised that I was one large stress ball.

The phone rang and it involved a meeting that I’d been trying to arrange for months. The only day that all parties involved can attend, is Monday. This is something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. So Monday it is. The challenge is that I was supposed to be at a Day of Retreat out of town. But in all fairness, this meeting is important. And I’m not too far away from 10 days of holidays. You win some, you lose some.

So, I went upstairs and had a warm bath, put on clean pajamas and spent the rest of the afternoon doing nothing. I’m not normally good at doing nothing. But today I had to do nothing…my body was telling me so.

The dining room table needs to be cleaned off, and it will get done…but not today. There’s a stack of paperwork that needs to be sorted through, and it will get sorted through…but not today.

Listening to my body is something new for me. And while it seems I wait a little too long to listen, at least I am listening…eventually.

For those of you who are reading and nodding…be gentle with yourself. You know what I mean.

A new adventure awaits me Wednesday night…yoga. I bought a yoga mat today and am excited to learn more about yoga. I plan on bringing my yoga mat with me on vacation so I can practice what I’ve learned.

That adventure will wait for another day. Right now I’ve got a cup of tea to make and dishes to wash…on second thought, the dishes will wait.