No Time

 

I have had good intentions on this blog, but lately I’ve suffered from “NoTime Syndrome”.

During March (and, as we head into April) I’ve had very little time to peek my head above water in this blog.  Assignments for both the seminary classes I’m taking this semester. Assignments for CPE and the long commute (3 hours) to my CPE site and back.  Holy Week.  The death of a friend. The impending departure of the priest in my home parish as she took another call, with all the requisite loose ends there, as well as a glimpse of the future in my “formation in place”.  (The good news there is that a plan is in place that will allow me to avoid the usual delay that takes place in the ordination process during the interim–the bad news is all the details of that plan are yet to be worked out.)  I taught the newcomer’s class during Lent.  My mom was in the ER right before my birthday.

Oh, and let’s not forget the two days a week I still work as a hospital pathologist.

As much as I love CPE, I am rejoicing that the end is in sight.  Six more weeks.

The fact remains I have spread myself too thin.  Yet, I realize it is only temporary.  This has taught me a great deal about my limits.  I suspect at the end of six weeks, I’ll be coughing some water out of my lungs and realizing just how close I came to drowning.

I think back to when I was twelve years old, and DID almost drown once.  We had been to California to visit my great-uncle and my great-aunt, and went to the beach.  I was a decent swimmer, and was having fun letting the current take me out and swimming back in.  I was out where the surfer dudes would start their rides.  But I went out one too many times and found myself tired going back–too tired to buck the current–and one of the surfer dudes had to haul me in on his surfboard.

What I remember was that I didn’t realize I was about to drown until…well…I was about to drown.

Oh, I’ve done a little better than that this time.  But what I realize is to avoid drowning, I had to pull way in, inside myself, to my contemplative place.  The place where God and I merely sit on the porch and say very little to each other, but feel each other’s presence.  Today I’m in the post-ictal phase of all that.  When I am spread too thin, it really is like I have this weeks long absence-style seizure.  I just go numb and don’t remember much.  I become unavailable to too many people.  I regret that part.

So for now, I’m simply sitting on the surfboard coughing up salt water a bit.  All shall be well…but all shall be REALLY well in six weeks.