Ummm, Time to breathe, maybe?

Holy Week: clergy::Christmas Eve:store clerks at Best Buy. Relentless, overwhelming, fraught with the unexpected.

Yeah, it's like that around here.

We had a memorial service for a dear saint on Saturday. A good Palm Sunday, with cooperative weather so we could have our procession of palms start outdoors. Hiccups with two pastoral visits: one person is in a nursing home, and has reached the point in her life that she sleeps most all the time. Our lay visitors went (I had called ahead to prepare the nurses) but the lady was asleep. They checked in later in the afternoon and found she was awake, but by the time they drove down there, she was asleep again and could not be roused. Another pair of lay visitors went to see someone whose wife (unbeknownst to us) was on the verge of death in the hospital. Husband and wife are different denominations - it gets complicated.

Last night my senior warden and I paid a visit to a family with unbloggable issues. Needed to be dealt with, but exhausting for all. Thank goodness for a fine, calm senior warden.

Today is a whole lotta sermons. Got all the ones for this week, through the Easter Vigil, done. Starting now on the Easter Sunday morning one, which will need to be special for all those folks who only come twice a year, and for all those folks who have to listen to me the rest of the time.

Our great secretary has the bulletins in good order. We're thinking ahead to the memorial service the Wednesday after Easter, and the newsletter after that. Bulletins get complicated, too, because we shift Eucharistic Prayers and Prayers of the People with the seasons.

Meanwhile, life goes on in the more quotidian ways. Lots of phone calls, pastoral visits, family stuff (preparing for StrongOpinions to graduate from Columbia and for niece to get married later next month), taking the cat to the vet for kitty chemo, unsuccessfully trying to find time for the gym.

My breathing time comes in the car, on the way to the office, when I listen to and participate in Morning Prayer via podcast. Sweetest 15 minutes of the day during this busy week.

Praying and breathing...