Read, Read, Read...Think

I'm back from the first of two weeks of study leave I'll take this summer, and my mind is swirling with everything I've read. It's always amazing to me that when I am able to take a break from the pace of email and the space of the office I really do think differently. Each year, I'm surprised how many of my platform topic ideas come from that week or two of study leave...even when the topics themselves seem to be totally unrelated to the books I've read! I did read some books this time, though, and I'll be posting reviews of each of them here over the next couple days. And I welcome recommendations for other books! I do get to them eventually (one of the books I'll review, "Death With Interruptions" was loaned to me almost a year ago by a WES member). Right now, I'm just aware of the different kinds of thinking that we're all capable of, and what a luxury it is to expand my mind into the less-usual kind of thinking when I'm able.

Taking Off My Make-up

I'm preparing to leave on a week's vacation tomorrow--a yearly camping trip with extended family. I'm looking forward to exploring part of the country I haven't seen before, and of course to reconnecting with far-flung cousins and with my own husband and children! But you know what I'm looking forward to most? Not wearing make-up. I don't wear a lot of make-up. And what I do wear is almost indistinguishable from my natural coloring; it makes one wonder why I spend money on it anyway. The answer is the same reason that I'm glad to have a break from it: make-up makes me feel put-together, professional, ready for my role in the world. It makes me think a bit about my colleague Mary Herman's reflection on the masks we wear at last Sunday's platform service, although in this case I think the mask can be a positive one. Or maybe it's less a mask than a marker, to ourselves most importantly, that we are engaged in the world in a particular way. But any engagement needs breaks, and so taking off my make-up signals to me that I'm engaging with the world in a different way, that I don't need to look "presentable" or prepared. (This isn't a comment, by the way, on whether or not any of us really need to wear make-up to look anything...just a reflection on my own practice). So I'm looking forward to my week without make-up, my week of different engagement in the world. And whatever your "make-up" is, I hope you get a break from it now and then, if only so you can return refreshed, pores clean and open, ready to take on the world once again.

Busy, Busy, Busy

In case you haven't been following our daily updates on our homepage, the Washington Ethical Society finally has internet back. We were out for more than a week, and we'll probably never get most of the emails that were sent during that time. All those emails, lost. All that busyness, gone for ever. I may discover that I am wrong, but right now I am thinking that missing a week of email might be kind of great. I may be influenced by the recent New York Times article that praises, basically, the virtue of idleness. Or rather, bemoans the American obsession with always being busy, with creating busyness in our lives as though it's some kind of badge of honor. I feel this most acutely as a minister, as a religious leader. On the one hand I have a role as a kind of executive, running an organization with a staff, a budget, a Board, and all the expectations that go with it. On the other hand, my deeper calling is to teach and preach and model a life that goes against those expectations, to convince people that a well-lived life is about listening deeply, connecting in real time, creating space to notice the amazing world around us. Which of those two functions wins on any given day? What do I do to allow each function to flourish? I'm not suggesting that I'm going to ditch the budget and stare at the clouds all day. But if the server goes down every now and then...well, maybe that's not the worst thing in the world.