What I Did With My Sunday

I started the day with a cup of coffee, after a great, restful night of probably more sleep than I needed.

Or maybe not.

If you sleep until you wake up, do you end up with the right amount of sleep?

When left to my own devices, I almost always sleep 9 - 10 hours before awaking. I always feel guilty about this; something from my childhood and my mom, who is always up at the crack of dawn (hi, Mom!)

I digress; anyway, this morning, I slept until I had my fill, and when I awoke, I had a cup of coffee, eggs and bacon. I "went to church" with Newspring via their online service. I enjoyed the worship music - sang along, even, and felt engaged with God as I did so - and I enjoyed the message immensely.

But I sure didn't feel like I went to church. Which is interesting to contemplate. I've only ever watched online church in addendum to my regular gathering time. I've never been in a situation where it was the only option, as it was today due to the weather-related cancellation of our services.

I missed community. I missed my friends. I missed the people, the connection, the overwhelming gulp I feel in my throat when I look out over the crowd and see my community.

I am also a bit disappointed in myself. I thought that the day would hold some different spiritual flavor. I expected that I'd take advantage of the time to embrace room to pray, to read, to be with God.

I did not. Although it seemed like a holy time, just having a good night's sleep and feeling unencumbered by pressure and work, I'm not sure there was enough room for anything else. As the kids began to call and make their way home, the time slipped away. The openness of unplanned time ahead and behind me disappeared.

And then we went shopping.

I had hoped for more. Too many other things are crowding out those moments. I'm busy, preoccupied with Christmas Eve services and rehearsals that have to be made up this week; plans for the last week of 2009 and the first week of 2010 and a wedding, for goodness' sake.

I'm cutting myself some slack, going to bed and looking forward to tomorrow. This post started out with intentions of writing about coffee cups. Look where we ended up.

Kind of like my life these days; I'm always ending up somewhere that's not quite where I planned....