For more years than I can count, I’ve traveled to New Mexico for a winter stay. Every year is unique to where my heart is yearning to be—sometimes play, sometimes adventure, always quiet and beauty.
This year I am calling my transition year as I complete thirty years of serving as a priest and moving towards my next call as a priest, retired.
Since before Thanksgiving, I have been darting and lunging and traveling and my soul is tired. I find myself longing for the familiar.
My therapist had reminded me of how unsettled my life had been since the first time my home flooded Tax Day, 2016. Seven years of throwing away and packing and unpacking through two destroyed homes, one call ending and a new one beginning, and buying my first home. The pandemic added another layer of relocation through creating and recreating and reshaping work space. I’m weary from seven years of change.
Usually when I come to my winter away place in Taos, I am ready for the unexpected. This year I want to be in a settled place.
I find myself gazing and pondering rather than filling my phone with photos of the beautiful views that surround me. I want to fill my soul with the images instead.
Yesterday my traveling friend and I went out for the twisty way we love to explore. I was exhausted after four hours and was ready to return to the familiar of my casa.
It snowed yesterday, and today I am resting with the quiet of snow. A little reading. A little repairing. A little painting. A little silence. Ever prayer.
House of Grace 
Sounds like a perfect respite. Take care of yourself, Beth.
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