It has been a strange week. I have been on the run, getting up early and working late and yet I would have to say it is has been less than a productive week. Partially it has been marked by the Tyranny of the Urgent as everything had a sense of needing to been done right now. I was cleaning the last of our rental kerfuffle (is that how you spell it) as we suddenly ended the year with no rentals for 2/3 of our commitments in January. Anybody who talks about the joys of renting 'neutral space' as a church and doesn't give a slight wince as they do it has only ever read books written by people who have forgotten what it is really like!!! I switched phones over Christmas and in doing so kept getting error messages from Blackberry about my emails bouncing - so nobody knew if I got messages and I never was sure if they really went out. It was a mess. There was a lot of other stuff going down with a number of people grieving losses - loved one, jobs, relationships - and others facing challenges that seemed pretty insurmountable. I sometimes feel like I am supposed to have all the answers to these issues and provide them to the congregation like some sort of salve. The truth is I have no idea and most often I sit with people completely gobsmacked and silent. The only consolation is that I hate it when my fellow 'spiritual raconteurs' dole out trite, condescending wisdom and then walk away because they have built up a filter between themselves and the people in their congregations. Add to this I finished up dental work that has been pushed off for a number of years.
The end result of this week has been one I have been fairly sleep deprived (even when the day finally finishes I have 4 kids that all seem to wind up in my bed) so I have tried to grab sleep wherever and whenever I can. On Monday I was having my face drilled for cavities and they had to put in a special mouthpiece because I kept falling asleep and closing down on the drill. This might be why they suggested I do the next set (on Thursday) without any freezing (it wasn't too bad and I did stay awake). I spent Tuesday feeling like they might have wheeled me out to the parking lot and used my face as traction to get a car out from being stuck in the snow. As painful as that was I am writing this post in an even greater degree of pain from falling asleep on the seats at the Calgary Airport. The actual ergonomic design of the public seating must have been sponsored by the Calgary Chiropractors Association.
As I get set to upload this I know that there is one more painful sleep ahead of me after I board my flight and get ready to be shoehorned into a a airplane fuselage that looks like footage from one of those PETA-produced shockumentaries aimed at Factory Farms. I don't want to fall asleep - I have brought books on exciting topics like Training Evaluation Models and theory to keep me awake - but I know by the time we hit cruising altitude I will be pressing up hard against the only other man over 6 foot 3 on the flight. I hope he at least is a little bit soft and a whole lot understanding.
Ehkosit,
Migwec
