I now know that if I stop blogging for a bit, ‘re-entry’ is like getting into the water to swim – lovely once you’re in, but requiring a bracing plunge. A challenging and busy time just lately meant I did not have enough energy to reflect and write, nor to relax properly.
So, words from Monday’s reading hit home hard:
Why should you be beaten any more? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness – only wounds and bruises and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil. (Isaiah 1:5-6)
Well, a sore back, anyway! My hope is that Advent will be for me a time of cleansing and ‘making sound’, repairing and being mended. But what about the ‘rebellion’ Isaiah mentions? He is talking about Israel rebelling against God, which often meant going their own way and not trusting God. Self-reliance can lead to overwork. So there is a spiritual side to burnout too.
Our congregation at Holy Trinity has been exploring ways to share faith, as part of our ‘Mission Action Plan’. We are practising sharing faith with each other, and one of things we have done is to put together an ‘Advent Calendar’ made up of contributions from the congregation – texts, ideas, poems, suggestions of things to do in Advent, one for each day. I guess plunging into blogging again with this post is my contribution to that sharing.
crisping ripples 