General Ministry - Alone Time

I began a practice of doing almost nothing but relaxing on my first day off after a long string of shifts about 3 years ago about the time I went to the National Youth Worker Convention in Pittsburgh. This has been a great way for me to reconnect with God on a regular basis. Especially, when my schedule is all over the place, due to the rigors of shift work. I've been able to do this pretty regularly. Although the next couple of weeks could be rough.

My main problem is having to break one of my main personal rules of not bringing work home with me. I don't mind talking to people about the weather and how things work, but after being so absorbed with it, when I was younger, that I began to find it not as fun as when I first started to do the hobby stuff when I was a kid. As I began to let God guide my life and I concentrated on other things that I found just as fulfilling, my career as a meteorologist began to become more rewarding as well.

The reason for the break in the rules has been a couple of things, that have all come on me at once. The fire weather program, that I administer, has been a pretty big challenge this spring as the program had some large changes administratively, and this has lead me to have to, "put out a lot of little fires," this spring. The other thing is that the NWS has put through a refresher course for severe weather warnings, Weather Service wide. A good thing, but it has put a time crunch on trying to get things done. I also have to go on the semi-annual SAWRS visits, where I go out and inspect the weather equipment of the back up weather observers at some of the airports. So now to get AWOC (the severe weather course) done by May 15th, I will have to break my rule.

With a couple of other things going on this weekend, I will probably have to take Monday, the day I would probably would have done little, but relax, and sit front of my computer and do my weather lessons. I'm starting to think this is sounding like whining, but you have to realize that my alone time with God is probably the most important thing to me. When I let it go or get myself into a scheduling pickle, then I find that I am distracted and my flesh takes my spirit for a ride, instead of the other way around, like it should be. That may sound esoteric, but for me, it works. I am more content and feel more plugged in when I keep my spiritual side alive and well fed and I am content and feel that all things are possible. Of course, I could just not schedule so much as well.

Which brings me to what I do during my meditation times on my Sabbath, which is where I think I really wanted to go with this post. I have come across couple that work for me.

1) lectio devina or sacred reading - this is a cool way to read the Bible. Although, it doesn't work for all of the verses. Since it has been said that lectio is praying the scriptures, its hard to pray the begats.

2) Breath prayer/centering prayer/Jesus Prayer - this one is good for those times you don't know what to pray, but want to pray. They are all similar as that you repeat a particular phrase over and over.

There are others as well, but these are my favorite.

Things otherwise are going well.