Thursday, June 03, 2010

Missouri Annual Conference - Part 1

I'm a slacker and I know it. I haven't been blogging regularly for a while now, and as I'm gathering with United Methodist friends from all over Missouri this weekend, I'm trying to understand why. Many of them check my blog to see if I've posted and all I can come up with is that I've been busy doing other things. Yes, sadly, Facebook is one of those things that takes up more of my time now. I feel like I need to really evaluate the value of my time and how it's best spent. There are great things about Facebook but there are also great things about blogging that I miss, so I'm going to try to be intentional about posting some thoughts up here for the weekend I'm at Annual Conference at least. We'll see what happens after that. :)

As I was talking with one of my seminary friends about this earlier tonight I realized that what I miss most about my blog is pondering some of the bigger questions. I mean, look at my blog title - I used to live for this stuff! I would talk about theology and political ideas and now I feel like my brain gets consumed with making lists of things that I need to do or bring with me to whatever event is next on my agenda for work. I get so bogged down with the daily grind that I don't have the luxury of time to ponder the big questions. Of course, that's not entirely true since I make the the time to play Treasure Madness on Facebook each day - it seems that my priorities have shifted. I go from thinking about lots of daily things to wanting to do something mindless rather than intentionally intellectual. Where I used to have nothing but time to devote to that pursuit, I now see it as a luxury and not necessarily one that I care about having all the time. My priorities, it seems, have shifted. Or have they? I miss seminary and I miss the conversations I used to have about these things. I'm just going to have to decide how often I need them to satisfy that piece of me without draining what little brain function I feel like I have left after work. Do you ever feel like this? Am I making any sense at all?

Okay, so I'm trying to focus on Missouri Annual Conference. This is my first annual conference as a commissioned Deaconess, which means I have voice and vote. I'm also here partly for work, representing Habitat for Humanity Kansas City with a booth in the exhibitors' section - it is where I serve as a Deaconess after all. I've never worked a booth at conference before and I've only been to the MO annual conference one other time. That was in 2007 as we were voting on delegates for the 2008 General Conference so there was a lot of church business to deal with, some of which got pretty ugly, so I'm curious to see what a "regular" year looks like.

1 comment:

revhipchick said...

this is not a "regular" because we are focusing on spiritual development--which is a needed change!

glad to hear your voice on the blog!

you are not alone! i find that lately my blog is mind-numbing day to day stuff rather than anything ineteresting.

i too am attempting to be more intentional.

lastly..you a slacker? NO WAY! you may be a slacker at blogging but that's it! welcome back!