Early

Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm about to leave early. As Peter Trueman used to say "this isn't news, but it's reality."

I'm trying to do more of that lately. I'm making an effort, as I reported to the rest of my team at staff meeting this week, to disconnect. I'm working at taking the time off that I have coming. In this job we work lots of overtime. Or at least if we were in a regular job it would be counted as overtime.

Have you ever considered that there are really only about 50 weekends in a year that one could reasonably be in a Sunday congregational gathering? And that most of your CEM team tend to work those days! (I'm giving us a conservative two weeks holiday; because, believe it or not, reunion, youth camp, directors' retreat, even women's retreat) do not count as holidays. Even if you're not officially "on staff" because there's always someone who needs to talk, or ask questions or give you some feedback on something you talked about last time. Now don't think we don't enjoy all that--or most of it anyway, but it isn't exactly leisure.

This is not to say either that we only work weekends! Much stuff gets packed into "office hours" even if those hours are spent on the road, at a home office, meeting with people, attending workshops or meetings or information sessions or preparing to preach, teach, counsel... There's plenty to do.

So here's the scoop. Sometime in the year 2011 I DO plan to retire--not come in to work any more. And I need to practise not being here, not staying until the last person leaves, not waiting to see if there's something more to do, someone else to call. I need quite a lot of practice, alas. It might take several months. But for today, I think I'll just leave early. Is everybody OK with that?

Posted by Marion