Putting this year's vacation into perspective...

This summer we shared a totally wonderful series of vacation days: our new and dear friends, Peter and Joyce, came to see us from Thunder Bay, Ontario - we joined our friends Susan and David for Yoyo Ma's "Silk Road Project" at Tanglewood - we journeyed a total of 1,200 miles on the way the BuskerFest 2010 in Halifax, Nova Scotia (stopping along the way in Maine as well as St. John, New Brunswick) - we got a chance to see our daughters at various times - and listened to a TON of great music. Most of all, this vacation was a gentle experience of taking the time to be with one another and do the things that nourish our souls.

+ Along the way, it became clear to me (again) that I need to stay grounded in prayer lest I get too cocky or distracted.

+ I noticed that more and more I am less and less interested in the glitz and huzzah of a lot of popular culture; rather, what intrigues and encourages me is music well played in pursuit of compassion and beauty. Sometimes that is jazz - we saw a lot of jazz this vacation and the skill and creativity of the musicians was truly food for my soul - often it is what we used to call "wooden music" - acoustic songs with simple and appropriate back-up support - and curiously enough a lot of the music I am loving right now is Canadian. Bruce Cockburn, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Tragically Hip, The Band and Steve Bell are speaking to me in ways that have really captured my imagination.

+ And I find that I am committed to an emerging sense of church in ways that are deeper and more counter-cultural than at any other time in my ministry. Not only do I sense that our local faith community is on the cusp of being a center for radical hospitality and compassion in these strangely intolerant times, but that we could be allied with countless other small faith communities who sense a similar calling, too. Communities that cut across tradition and denomination to include Jews and Muslims and Buddhists - communities that go beyond the confines of race and nationality - communities that quietly and creatively seek live out an alternative to the greed, violence and fear of this era. And while some Christians plot and plan for "Burn the Qu'ran" rallies - and Sarah Palin and so many within the Republican party take on a neo-Nazi agenda - I sense the presence of Christ crucified crying out. What's more, the broken Christ on the cross also beckons us to his Feast in solidarity with all the wounded as a parable of hope and healing.

This has been a rich time for rest and renewal. Tomorrow I head back into the work of serving my local faith community as "a minor poet" to use the words of M. Craig Barnes:

Today’s pastors — often expected to be multitasking marvels who can make their churches "successful" — are understandably confused about their role... (but) the true calling of a pastor is to assist others in becoming fully alive in Christ — to be a "minor poet." The pastor absorbs the wisdom of major poets — the biblical poets as well as the church’s theological poets — and distills its essence for parishioners... What the congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath even the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God's image.

I look forward to this new year of ministry in a new and refreshed way. Like Barnes concludes: the calling of the pastor is not to make arguments, but to reveal mysteries.