January 31, 2011

A Day in the Life

On Monday, January the 24th I celebrated the third anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. It has been a wild ride over these past 3+ years of ordained ministry. I've chronicled a couple of those wild days here and here.

I decided that the third anniversary of my priesting was a good a day as any chronicle my exploits, so here goes.

As always, I was running 5 minutes behind schedule in the morning, so while I strive to arrive in the office, my day almost always begins, in earnest, at 8:05am.

8:05am - The parish secretary is finishing up our monthly sering rota and needs me to choose lessons, where applicable, for the Sundays and Wednesdays I'm preaching. I oblige.

8:20am - Download Sunday's sermon recording from the digital voice recorder, make sure there aren't huge gaps of silence, then upload to our podcast hosting site.

9:00am - Arrive at Wal*Mart to buy a new hand mixer for the parish kitchen. I helped break the old one back in November, and kept forgetting to replace it. OOOPS. New one is secured.

9:15am - Swing by McDonald's in Gulf Shores for a cup of coffee.

9:30am - Make several pastoral calls from the parking lot.

10:00am - My neighbor serves as the head of the Business Support Center in Gulf Shores. They are striving to help small business owners affected by the Oil Spill and its aftermath. He and I gather to talk about how St. Paul's and ER-D can help make life a little easier for the thousands still not "made whole."

10:30am - Back to Foley, USA, to meet the family at Chik-fil-a.

10:40am - More pastoral calls from a parking lot.

10:51am - Reach out to a high-church friend via Facebook regarding offering a mass in someone's memory.

11:00am - An early and fun lunch with my two favorite ladies.

11:52am - Hit the road to Magnolia Springs Baptist Church to attend the funeral of a parishioner's father. I sat with my Rector and our friend, Dr. J. Good conversation while we waited. Between our two churches, 14 people have died in the last several weeks. We ended up standing in the "narthex" for the service as the church was overflowing and it didn't seem right for the guy in the collar to sit while the guy with a cane stood right beside him. Best part of the service? The homily ended with "War Eagle."

1:50pm - Back in the office for a flurry of activity: catching up on email, blogging, printing out the readings for Wednesday's service, and thanks to Father Matt in NJ, finding and printing a Mass Card for the Wednesday Mass with Special Intentions. (I wore a chausible that day, those who know me and what that means, all two of you, will find that funny.)

2:30pm - Back in the car to see my shrink. She's very ADHD, which I find frustrating at times, but she is very good.

4:00pm - The day started 5 minutes late and ended 30 minutes early, and I don't care. I used to care, but know I know, I'll give those 35 minutes back at some point.

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