I know.

I didn’t do a week of blogging.

A friend of mine asked about my blog over the weekend. I realized that part of why I blogged was because I felt like there was all this stuff I needed to get “out there”, mostly while I was in Scotland, and terribly lonely, with all these things happening to me, with no one to tell besides the big internet. Now, I feel like I have less to say - not that I *think* less, or process less, but just that I have less to put “out there”. Maybe it’s because things have settled down. Maybe it’s because I’m married, and at the end of the day I feel like I’ve gotten my of that stuff out of my system (I have a husband who is a great listener). I don’t know.

And I’ve been a bit out of sorts lately. For a variety of reasons - some of which I am aware of, but I think some of it I’m still figuring out.

A few weeks back, somehow, I started reading Anne Jackson’s blog, Flowerdust.net. I don’t read a lot of blogs anymore, because I’ve gotten out of the habit, and I don’t follow link-to-link like I used to, back in college. Anne’s is one that I come back to. She wrote a book that just got released, called Mad Church Disease, about burnout in ministry. I felt like it was something I should read.

I mentioned this to Danny last week. Danny is our staff chaplain…I’m so grateful to be employed by a workplace that even has a staff chaplain - especially someone as great as Danny. I told Danny I hadn’t read it yet because it wasn’t at the library yet. He got all kinda-fake mad at me and said that was silly, because he would love to buy it for me. (I…didn’t really think about that, to be honest. But it didn’t shock me.) The next morning I got a call from Danny. “God is thinking of you today, my friend,” he started. He went on to say that that morning, he walked into his senior pastor’s office (of the church where he’s on full-time staff) and saw the book laying on his desk. “Where did you get that?” he asked his pastor. The pastor shrugged and said someone gave it to him. Danny asked if he was going to read it. He said not soon. Danny asked if I could borrow it. His pastor said sure.

Danny came in with it the following day, so I could have it over the weekend. Last night, Ben and I spent the night in a cabin - not so much for a romantic Valentines weekend, but more for just a night’s break for me. I needed….SOMETHING. My mother has called every day this week to tell me about her vacation in South Padre. I cried the third time. Not because I really like South Padre Island (it doesn’t do much for me), but because I felt like I was going to break.

(She called me on Friday to tell me about the horrible sunburn she got that day, and how much pain she was in. I said she deserved it. Thankfully, she laughed.)

So Ben agreed to a cabin in Brown County. It’s beautiful down there. I got to read. I stuck to Mad Church Disease and the Bible. Ben and I watched a movie. I woke up to the sound of a single bird - and that was all. It was otherwise silent. I usually wake up to sirens from Methodist Hospital and the Fire Dept, both of which are three blocks away, and busy traffic. I’m used to it now - I love living in the city, honestly - but the sound of a single bird was so out of the ordinary, it was stunning.

It was a start.