In but not of

The annual gathering of local (NoCal & NV) UCC churches.
Six others of our church here.
Acquaintances of a decade or more all around.
A beautiful lagoon outside the hotel window.

Part of me is waving and greeting, talking plans and challenges and hopes, giving comfort, shooting the breeze. Some I'm really grateful to see. These are people I love whom I barely know, but have some connection through the Holy Spirit. Some are simply familiar faces from a dozen of annual encounters.

You ever seen one of those movies where the lead character walks through events unseen? He's returned to the past, or he's a ghost, and people walk right through him or around him: he is in that world but not of it.  That's the even bigger part of me: disinterested and uninterested in much of it. Or soaking in as much as I can of small bits of it, as it moves around me and through me. I'm the immaterial one, because I'm leaving.

Jesus isn't here with me, and I'm not sure whose fault that is.  He's here, of course, especially in my "in but not of"-ness, but I'm not sensing him in the material part.

Maybe my spirit is just preparing to leave the lagoon and the ocean and the acquaintances and my people. So the Lord and I are just going to keep moving about while my spirit gazes off into the distance.

Leaving church

The snowball is growing, and I'm leaving. Today I officially announced my resignation, with Wonderful Husband and Delightful Daughter at my side. Our leadership had called every active member, so it wasn't a surprise for anyone, but it was still weird.

My last preaching weekend is at the end of October. I have no idea yet what will happen Nov. 1st. I just know I won't be going into the office.

More on this later; just reflecting on the strangeness of it all.