annual Christmas pilgrimage

Our family is on our annual after Christmas pilgrimage to Martha's (my wife) family home on Linger Lake on the Cumberland Plateau outside of Crossville, TN. Martha and I met here 20 years ago when I was the pastor of Church of the Good Shepherd United Church of Christ and also Coordinator (staff person) of the Alabama-Tennessee Association of the UCC. My last year here I left the Ala-Tenn position and served the merging of Church of the Good Shepherd with Fellowship Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

This year I have read so far "Clapton - Autobiography" by Eric Clapton which was a Christmas present (not so great autobio, but very good as he finds a spiritual center in his life in 12 Step recovery from drugs and alcohol), an article "Theological Roots of the Three-Fold Model: The Three-Fold Office of Christ: A Framework for Many Occasions" by David Specht, and finishing up "Urban Iona: Celtic Hospitality in the City" by Kurt Neilson. We are about to go see the movie "Charlie Wilson's War."

This year it has taken me four days to find the space or groove of relaxed serenity. Over all these years I have been able to read, unwind and eat great cooking by mother in law. And each time I wonder why life like this is so rare or so distant from the "regular" way I live my life in Akron (or in the Clear Lake City section of Houston when we lived there...when we lived in St. Germain, WI it felt this way in and of itself.)

Today I cleaned up the SOAP Bible journaling page on the web site. Previously I cleaned up the Spiritual Life page on the web site and the mission outreach page.

Tomorrow we plan to worship God at Pleasant Hill Community United Church of Christ which is predominantly made up of folks from the UCC related retirement and multi-level care community Uplands. Pleasant Hill is ten miles away from Crossville and a number of friends from my old days here as well as old friends who I knew from various settings around the UCC now live there.