There's a great line in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books where Ford says to Arthur something along the lines of "I drive by Zen. I don't often get where I'm going, but I usually end up where I need to be."
That pretty much describes last week for me...
After a few nice days in Idaho with the family I headed back here to Portland alone for a week of personal retreat time. I had a pretty good list of things I wanted to do, and perhaps the list was a bit too optimistic... I was hoping to rest physically and emotionally, but also to get a lot of reading done (I had visions of 4 or 5 books checked off the list running through my head), a lot of writing (including dusting some of the tumbleweeds off this here blog), much thinking and outlining of thoughts, a ton of prayer...
Most of that didn't happen...
I did get one article done for Next Wave, and while not great, it's a least good. At least good enough to rile up some good discussion at any rate. :)
But the rest of the list?
I read a bit, prayed some, at the end of the time felt physically and emotionally relaxed and rested (which I shouldn't devalue!), but...
I didn't get started on any book projects, certainly didn't blog like I wanted to, didn't read more than a few chapters, didn't get all the thoughts about church and personal life outlined like I wanted to... What the heck happened?
I had an invitation from a pastor friend of mine (that's him) to come over to his place on Friday night for cigars and margaritas (yeah- we pastors are a wild crowd), and I told him "I'm doing this personal retreat time thing." "Great way to end it!" he says...
So I'm driving over there, thinking about how my week is effectively over, how I haven't really wrapped up sermon/discussion for that Sunday (a tactical scheduling error, I know...), how Saturday will be taken up with that and Sunday with our gathering and then home group and how it's back to work on Monday... and how I hadn't really gotten where I wanted to be for the week.
And that's when I got where I needed to be.
I realized (about 2 blocks from my friend's house) that subconsciously, at the very back of my mind (okay, occasionally a little farther forward) I've been laying my lack of creative output at the feet of others, others that I love very much. I think I've been carrying around the idea, somewhere deep down inside, that if I just didn't have to have a job and spend time with family, there's so much I could get done- books I could read, books I could write, big important thoughts I could think...
It wasn't so much that I longed for bachelorhood again, but I think I had this picture in my mind of the person I wanted to be and needed a convenient place to rest the blame for the fact that I am not anywhere close.
The thing is, I had a whole week where I had neither job nor family, and still...
The reason I don't pray more, think more, read more and write more has nothing to do with my job or my family... and it has everything to do with me.
Like I say, just where I needed to be.
