Ironic Rock

I ought to be working. I came down here to this nice big table in the College on purpose to work. I brought my computer and books. The library is nearby, complete with Greek lexicon. I have space and quiet. These should be ideal working conditions. I justified working on my sermon and service on Friday and Saturday, by promising myself that I would get to work on my essay first thing Monday morning. Well, it is nearly half-past two on Monday afternoon, and I haven't cracked a book. Somehow I can't seem to start. As John was saying to Simon just now, when one's routine is interrupted, it can be hard to get back into it. In fact, the three of us were sitting there communally being unmotivated. Now John has gone to the bank and Simon has gone to his office to mark essays and I am sitting here, listening to a CD of Welsh songs, trying to drive myself to opening a book and beginning.
Of course, my mind is elsewhere, still recovering its tone from yesterday. Wondering in awe and a little fear what will come next and where it will all end up. Remembering walking around the park with Keith, embracing Fred and Annie, words of encouragement from Graham and Bernard, standing a top the mountain in the breeze talking to Mary. Trying to realize that person after person gave me positive feedback yesterday. Trying to accept that I am a leader and I am a preacher, regardless of what I have always thought or wanted.
This is the rock under the shifting sand. The inescapable and inevitable conclusion to a 15-year journey. The awe-filled beginning of the next. My sister called it denial. I think she was right. Not that I always knew and was avoiding the truth . . . or did I? In the fullness of time, God brought me face to face with the challenge. In response, I put my name down for the Pentecost Sunday morning service. Even after I set down the phone, I knew that I had taken an irrevocable step. I knew that Sunday, 11 May, would change me. I knew that life would never be the same again.
And now it is Monday, tomorrow, time to move on, do the next thing, realize that the time is running like a swift stream toward a waterfall and whatever great and life-changing things may be happening in my soul, research still must be done and mundane things taken care of, like the dishes and the laundry that I did this morning, and I'm trying to remember that I'm interested in the subject of my essay, that I want to study it. What was it again? Gregory of Nyssa . . . divine simplicity . . . it does have a bit of an attractive ring. Perhaps it is the thought of the Greek that puts me off. Of course, I don't have to do that Greek bit, but then I didn't have to preach yesterday.
Life is so ironic. LOL