Trinity, Jacksonville--John 1:43-51, I Samuel 3:1-10 One of the forms of play that we all engaged in as children is a guessing game. Something is a secret—usually the location of a hidden object or person. One or more of the players know the answer to the secret and one or more of the players try [...]

Attended and participated in the final session of the regular winter meeting of the Communion Partners, via Zoom. Took steps toward arranging a meeting with the leaders from three Eucharistic Communities that are in discernment about sharing a single full-time priest. Responded substantively to some recent correspondence from the Standing Committee. Did the finish work [...]

Attended and participated once again in the Communion Partners winter meeting via Zoom for two hours in the morning. Caught up on a substantial amount of reading. Interviewed another potential candidate for one of our parishes in transition and communicated via email with the relevant search committee. Made arrangements to meet (by video) with the [...]

Once again, attended the morning session of the virtual winter Communion Partners meeting. In the afternoon, I had a Zoom interview with a priest who has expressed interest in one of our parishes in transition. Followed up with an email to the relevant search committee. Beyond those things, I attended to a pastoral/administrative matter in [...]

Today's first "big rock" was a two-hour Zoom meeting of the Communion Partners (bishops and rectors). This is in lieu of our regular winter in-person meeting, which happens in Florida. Naturally, I'd rather be in Florida, but I'm glad we're still able to have the conference, which is spread out in two-hour segments all week [...]

Did some fairly significant reconstructive surgery on a sermon text for Epiphany II, toward preaching at Trinity, Jacksonville on the 17th ... wrote a note (by hand, and dropped in the mail) to a colleague bishop who is an old friend and my first boss in ordained ministry 32 years ago, and who is terminally [...]

Reviewed the materials of two potential candidates for two of our open clergy positions. This was not a perfunctory effort, but good faith due diligence, including looking at social media profiles and parish websites. One I eventually determined would not be a good fit for the diocese. The other merited some real-time contact, so those [...]

On the road northbound from my Bloomington hotel room at 0815. Arrived home at 1045, and by the time I got the car unloaded (still moving gradually out of my office) and everything stowed, it was time to worry about lunch. The afternoon wasn't satisfyingly productive--checking things off my to-do list--but it was necessarily productive--processing [...]

... aaaaand we're back. The last two weeks played out just as I had predicted they would, save that Christ Church, Springfield indeed chose not to meet for a few weeks, so I didn't make my planned visitation last Sunday. Today, I got my work week organized, and handled a couple of pressing items by [...]