Coming Out of the Fog

I felt like I was in a fog all last week. My plan was to take the week easy, but a parishioner passed away the Saturday before the vote and the funeral was a week later. I'm pretty sure this added to the fog feeling. It got so bad that I was missing meetings and forgetting times of events. I think a better description is that I felt numb. I couldn't check out too much having 3 young kids, but I know I checked out pretty bad.

The feeling lasted until Monday. After I came home from the office on Monday I decided to take as much of the week off as possible. I felt the need to purge so Monday after I got home I spent 2 hours in the kids play room and cleaned it out. I think this was very cathartic and it kind of reset me. Something else that is really helping me is that we are having the midweek Advent services. They are very simple services. We sing 2 hymns, we read from the bible and we sit in silent prayer. The silent prayer is really helping me and I hope it's helping the 5 people that come to the services.

So, for the past 3 days I've done very little work and I feel like I am finally ready to jump back into the process. Over the last week and a half I did not have the energy to do any planning or, to be blunt, deal with others emotions. I first had to work on my own.

Now that I feel like I am out of the fog - yet I know I am still working on my own feelings, I'm simply out of the fog - I am ready to plan again and start with visits with congregation members. I hope to meet with as many members as possible between now and May. I realize I have to make a shift in the kind of pastor I am which might be harder than I am anticipating. For two years I was a turn around pastor. I was working on change, asking for a mission centered congregation,  pushing people and changing the way people always did things. I made a lot of enemies in the process. Now, I am shifting to a chaplain. I am keeping things comfortable and asking to be let into how people are feeling. I am asking for people to be open to the way the Holy Spirit is working in this process and how the mission of the church will be moving forward in ways that they might not even be aware. I am now ready for the new challenge. This time last week I wasn't.

(Photo by basykes at Flicker.com)