1. I had a totally amazing time at preacher camp. Confidentiality precludes me from sharing any particular stories, but suffice to say we ate our way through Hip and Hilly, Texas; we read and discussed 31 papers on the lectionary texts; we laughed a LOT; we shared horror stories and grace tales of ministry; and we committed to next year’s meeting which will take place in Banking Capital, Southern State.

2. Our group is patterned after a group that’s been meeting for 25 years. The working title of our group was an homage to the varsity team, but we didn’t like having something derivative, so we have a new name, the Hebrew for which is ha-beer. And yes that is intentional.

3. The family fared well in my absence. M had a great time at the Mother’s Day program with two grandparents and R in attendance. And for once none of the kids got sick. I can’t thank G-mommy enough for holding down the fort with R, and also doing some household tasks along the way, such as tidying up the laundry room and buying a new welcome mat and other small things to make things nice.

4. The re-entry from Preacher Camp to three children is very abrupt. I’ll be going to bed soon.

5. Although I am tired, I did not burn the candle at both ends. I was asleep by midnight every night, and often earlier. And though the wine and beer flowed freely in the evenings (including a beer called “Session” which prompted many many Presby-nerd jokes) I drank very little. Must remember this for future years.

6. Being in that group helps me realize the small hole in my heart that comes from not preaching every week. I love serving as associate pastor at Suburban Pres., and am satisfied with so many aspects of that call, but… It’s hard because I believe that preaching is one of the things I was put on this earth to do, and right now I’m doing it monthly at most. That hurts the heart a bit is all.

7. At the same time, many of the experiences shared by the heads of staff in our group left me rather ‘bleh.’ Even good positive stuff on the HoS scale, like successful capital campaigns and such. I’m thrilled they are doing good work and are happy, and will probably feel that pull some day, but I had a visceral Not Interested reaction to a lot of that. Also our church’s fantastic treasurer resigned this week and I realized that as a HoS you just have to deal with crap like that All. The. Time.

8. I put together morning worship for our group, using almost 100% recycled materials I’d written for other places. I got some nice affirmation for my stuff and one person asked, “When are you going to publish this stuff? I’d pay money for resources like this.” This got me thinking about an online worship resource subscription service—sort of the Six O’Clock Scramble for liturgy. Thoughts?

9. I’m very thankful for R. He kept things going with nary a complaint or passive-aggressive comment. He also drove all the way to B’more to pick me up at the airport. I had devised this Rube Goldberg plan involving a Super Shuttle to Mom’s place, short walk to Metro, and someone leaving me a car at our Metro stop, which would have gotten me home around 2 a.m…. and yesterday R said, “Uh, why don’t I just pick you up?”

He’s sensible too.