Friday

  • Awoke in my office encampment, got myself put together, and slipped across the alley for devotions and Morning Prayer in the cathedral a little before 0800.
  • Made a breakfast run to Hardee's (chicken biscuit) and ate it on the way back to the office.
  • Took care of a couple of small administrative items with Sue.
  • Made necessary preparations to celebrate the Eucharist ahead of the Diocesan Council meeting (feria for Friday in the Fourth Week of Easter).
  • Presided and preached the Mass, and then presided over the Council meeting. It was a little longer and more involved than the May meeting usually is, but productive; candid, but not rancorous. 
  • Kept a 1230 lunch appointment with my ELCA opposite number, Bishop John Roth. I highly value our friendship, and wish we could get together more often.
  • Kept an appointment with a cleric of the diocese to discuss an ongoing pastoral/administrative matter of some substantive seriousness. It will continue to be ongoing for a while.
  • Spoke by phone for about 4o minutes with another cleric of the diocese about a completely different, though equally substantive, issue of pastoral practice. Though there are some serious questions attached to this one, it's mostly a good-news story.
  • As you might imagine, my introversion was severely taxed by this point. I wasn't really good for much, but still managed to process a large stack of emails and turn most of them into tasks. So my to-do list is now rather bloated.
  • Spent some devotional time in the cathedral, at the organ console, playing through the Easter section in the Hymnal 1940. There are some gems of texts and tunes that are, sadly, no longer part of our repertoire.
  • Prayed the evening office while I was there.
  • Noticed that I already had 5400 steps on my pedometer and planned a walking route calculated to top me off at the 10K goal, *and* deposit me at Bernie & Betty's for a Blue Moon and some beef ravioli. Yum.
  • And in the midst of the whole day, I was frequently texting and phoning either Brenda or one of our kids over what looked like it might be an emerging health-related "situation" for Brenda. It turned out not to be, with think.
  • Given my day, I indulged myself in the evening with a couple of TV shows on my laptop--one from Amazon Prime and one from Netflix.Whew.

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