I’m still learning.
And I tell myself that all the time.
“You’re still learning, Nell, it’s a learning curve and you’re still on it.”
Enter December.
So, I have family members who work for industry in general. And I see things wind down for the holidays. Note this: not in church world. NOT. IN. CHURCH. WORLD. Holidays are our things, and rightly so, so the weeks leading up to our very special feasts–Christmas, Easter–are full of bustle.
Remember, too, that I’m at a Hispanic parish.
And it’s incredible. Because add on top of this bustle of sacred memory and prayer and programming another layer of cultural devotions–beautiful, stirring devotions that are rich with meaning and community and love.
But I didn’t realize how much time everything would take. And I rode this train all December long that was full of me being like, “This is beautiful, I’m SO touched that they let me be a part of this” and “Dear Lord, this is going to be another twelve hour day.”
But, it was a learning curve, right? And I rode it.
And I don’t know that I learned all the answers for potential round two next December, but, at least I had the intro course.
Now that it’s January, I’m trying to find my footing again. There three things that I try to cling to for personal health: prayer time, exercise time, and sleep. I white-knuckle those, even though even those three sometimes slip from my grasp.
While all of those are important, I find that other things start to slip away. And, in some ways, I have to let them. There is only so much time to do everything even though there is SO MUCH that I would like to have done.
Because of that: writing slips. Hey, blog, sorry I barely wrote anything all December. Because of that: art slips. I’ve had pictures in my head for months that I’ve never painted.
But, here we are. January. 2017. It’s funny how “years” work. I mean, calendars are just constructions of our minds, aren’t they? Is there any real difference between December 31st of a given year and January 1st of the new year? Probably not a whole lot. But who doesn’t like a new beginning, right?
Here’s to more writing, more painting, more balance.
But, grace, too. Because it’s all still a learning curve. A steep, steep learning curve.