ONE LONG DAY

This has been one long day for me. It started this moring around 5:15 or so with the morning alarm. Had to be up early because it's Wednesday. Wednesdays in Lent the Sheridan churches participate in a Lenten Breakfast, each church taking a different Wednesday. Breakfast at 6:30, some kind of "program" at 7, out of there by 7:30 so people can get to work. Today it was our turn. So I was over at the parish hall at 6 helping with the final preparations and then greeting people as they came in.

I gave a little homily on John 5:1-18 , the gospel for today. Basically I was looking for a way to tie that gospel passage into Lent. I apparently did an okay job, based on many of the comments of the attendees. We had a good turnout, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 - 50 people.

After that I met with the local UMC pastor. We've started meeting every Wednesday to just chat and bounce sermon ideas off of each other. He's a good guy and I'm enjoying this. Sort of like a two-person ministerial association.

Then it was over to the office to finish ordo work. I got that taken care of and some last minute changes made. I had to do two separate ordos because I'm going to be out of town this weekend for Mrs. Ref's grandfather's 90th birthday party. So one ordo for reserved Eucharist at CC and one ordo for MP at VC. And I also finished the ordo for Palm Sunday.

In the afternoon I worked on prepping for our bible study class at CC. I found a basic bible overview (think Baby Bib or Bible 101) from Kerygma. It's pretty good and it's seven sessions long; perfect for filling up Lent. Good stuff, but I gotta tell you, it's darn hard to go over the entire OT in one hour.

Then it was home for a quick dinner and back over to the church for our 5:30 Eucharist. Follow that up with the bible study, and I was ready to come home and go to bed. Just as I was getting de-collared, Mrs. Ref says, "Aren't you going to the bar tonight?"

Oh, right . . . . it's the first Wednesday of the month, which means time at The Stockman. It was worth it. Slow night at the bar, but I had some really good conversations. There was a guy whom I had never seen before, so we did the obligatory, "Is that collar real?" conversation. Between the conversation, a few drinks, and a game of pool, it was a good night.

But now . . . I'm beat. I need to remember not to schedule our morning breakfasts the same day I make my bar visits. I plan on sleeping well tonight.