Hiatus?

Yes, it's been a while (months!) since I posted anything. I could make the excuse that working 50 hours a week and composing weekly sermons has depleted my creativity. (It has.) But beyond that, I was finding that the only topic that interested me was one I've already written about and I couldn't revisit it without fresh insights. So I waited, silent. Waited for something else to come to me. Waited, as I read through my list of blog seeds and found nothing that inspired me. Some of you waited too.

In early September, I thought, “Maybe this blog has run its course. Maybe I need to put together one more “Goodbye” entry and end it all.” But that didn’t happen. Again, it could have been the busyness. Or it could have been something else. In the weeks that followed the thought, I pondered that maybe Spirit God knew something I didn’t and I practiced compassion on myself as I continued to wait.

Thursday, I returned from Palestine where I’d joined a group on a Living Stones Pilgrimage (more on that another time). One evening midway through our time there, “First World Problems” popped into my head. I don’t remember in reference to what, but this’s how blog ideas have come to me in the past – as a possible title, a theme or a sentence to be fleshed out. And in that moment, I realized that I’m not finished here.

I have work to do.

I’ll come back to my favorite topic another time. (I already have an entry written and waiting.) I’ll probably write about those first world problems, too. But I expect I’ll also be writing about walls and reservations and apartheid. I may write about Wi’am. Or Tent of Nations. And refugee camps and settlements.

And, in season, gardening, of course...