Well, Helllloooo, Internets....

Contemplative Chaplain back and reporting for duty. I know, I know, it's been a lapse of, what, three-four years? Oh, wait, let me see how old Grayson is...ah yes, yes four years. I've tried to keep you (and by "you," I mean, my one faithful and loyal reader, Ms. Sandi Buchanan, my mother's best friend out there on a mountain in North Carolina...hey, Sandi! Hey there...I see you...thanks for the encouragement and hanging with me, and thanks for sending me that curling iron back in fourth grade when my parents weren't sure I was mature enough to not burn myself!), I've tried to keep my reader(s) up to date on the whereabouts and that whatabouts of my life by dropping a few bird crumbs in the form of sermons here and there...so as to keep some hope alive for my inner-writer, some hope that I would return in time to being the blogging mistress that I once was.

But there are, alas, some complications now. For, I am no longer that same Contemplative Chaplain. I have even forsaken my coveted Association of Board Certified Chaplain title (and the $300 plus yearly dues that went with it) and cast my lot back in the land of pastoral ministry. And, so who am I? Musing Minister? Pondering Pastor? Pontificating Parson? And, there is that tricky issue of "Pastoral Authority." Seminary professors and Clinical Pastoral Educators get all sorts of hot and bothered when they took about "Pastoral Authority." Essentially, there are furrowed brows and wagging fingers by some when it comes to the issue of a pastor sharing themselves personally, or irreverently, or honestly. So, how do I navigate this terrain without being unprofessional, without embarrassing my parishioners, without being cordially invited to answer to the association ministry commission?

And further, there is this. One little person who stands about 36 inches tall who says, "Mommy, what are you doing? Why are you typing? I'm still starving. I've only had two fruit smoothies and now can I have another one [Answer: No, last time you drank three in a row you puked a technicolor smoothie Jackson Pollock on the white carpet]? Mommy, ummm...I'm really, really still starving. Can't you type on your 'puter another time?"

And yet, and yet, and yet...I miss this outlet. And I miss you all (Ms. Sandi Buchanan, reader extraordinaire), and Grayson needs to learn about patience, really, right? And so, I think I'm back. God willing and the parishioners don't mind.