No longer 40!

Birthdays seem a good time to renew interest in a blog. Today I'm 41. I know it's only a number, just as 40 was only a number. But 41 is a very different number. For me, 40 was laden with the knowledge of all the dreams I've had to leave behind. In the past year I've done a lot of grieving. It's also been a year in which I've experienced a lot of death: Kathy Backlund, Robin Bennett, my beloved cat Zoya, a couple of parishioners who I knew well, and a number of other friends have been diagnosed with serious or terminal illnesses. It's been a year of sadness.

In June, though, I seemed to turn a corner. I spent a week in CA, returning to the Hoffman Institute for a Q2 graduate weekend, and then hanging out at Stinson Beach and Point Reyes and Muir Woods. Hoffman worked the same miracle it did before, and now, instead of grieving lost dreams, I feel ready to face forward into new dreams. On Monday I leave for a study program in England with my bishop. The first week of September will see me on vacation with my family in the mountains and at Camp Mikell. And so many possibilities for my life and my ministry lie open before me.

So I bid a fond farewell to 40 and a grateful howdy to 41. Maybe it's just the transition years that are so difficult for me. I am filled with hope, now, that my decade of forties will be the best yet and that I will seize the opportunities open to me. Love and light, everyone!