Yesterday,  soon after writing the piece about “what could be again” and missing the church that I remember,  I had a little glimpse,  later,  in the flesh,  of “what once was,  and could be again” (and no doubt, still is,  for many people).  

which was: “The homecoming” service

I suppose that one could say that it still IS for me too,  but I’ve been in a down period where I am sensing that the tides of change are not coming so quickly as I had hoped at frequent points along the past couple of years……I can recall several moments when I felt myself to be on the cusp of a change in direction,  and then something or other falls through,  and I reel in my disappointment,  not really wanting to start over again and try to find something in my routine that excites me.   I am left with simply going out and looking around,  usually online,  as I have lately,  getting excited about Weblogging.

It’s not like I don’t have frequent reminders that life is good,  and that I feel lucky to be alive.   I was just thinking about Darrell Kile this morning on the way in to work,  and last September when the whole world got reminded on the 11th,  and I got a double whammy on that day by discovering that my prostate biopsy showed NO SIGN of cancer.   I had been telling myself all along that if the news were good,  as it was,  I would have ample “existential impetus” to “do something about my life” in regards to vocation.  I got several doses in the next few weeks in the way of reminders that I had plenty of things to seek recovery from; that cried out for “renewal”.   And those things,  those disappointments,  seemed to accelerate and provide more provocative moments which gave rise to the “what am I doing here” kind of feeling,  at work and at church.  

When one’s work and one’s church involve tasks that so intimately intertwine (Web development stuff) and one’s vision for this development doesn’t seem to play well for the leaders for who are would-be beneficiaries (among many) of these visions,  it hurts.  And so, in both cases,  I have found myself backing off,  distancing myself and “disengaging” ,  which while providing some measure of sanity,  is most likely psychologically punishing…..no,  not “most likely”,  but IS. 

But as I indicate in the link to the Homecoming sermon comments,   things are going on under the hood.