One of my favorite movies is Enchanted April. After a long train trip and and a carriage ride through a rainy night to an uncertain destination, the heroine awakens and opens the curtains. Light and color and beauty fill the room.

After two days of travel, this is how I felt this morning when the sunrise in my garden room woke me up.

I said good morning to God and the sheep who live next door.

After a slow start, my best friend and I did the very short drive into Torshavn for a Faroese breakfast at our favorite morning cafe.

It’s my third trip to the Faroe Islands. The first trip was after Hurricane Harvey, and I was full of grief. I wanted to see the islands in a place of joy and returned in 2021. When I was planning my retirement, I knew this was the place that I wanted to start.

I love being in this beautiful place with more sheep than people that is off the regular path for most travelers. I’ve been here enough that it feels away yet like home.

My best friend and I have planned a no plan day today to allow our bodies to catch up with our souls.

I’ll have another cup of coffee as I enjoy the quiet beginning of this day and thank God one more time.

Yesterday afternoon my best friend and I boarded a Lufthansa plane for a nine hour flight to Frankfurt. We had a few hour stay over at the airport before boarding another one hour Lufthansa flight to Copenhagen where we had another few hours stay over before boarding a two or so hour Atlantic Airlines flight to Vagur in the Faroe Islands.

You really, really have to want to go to the Faroes. Which my best friend and I do—this being our third trip.

This trip is the beginning of my retirement travels. I’m still sorting out in my head what it means to not have an endless list of things left undone at my job. Now I’m discovering a new rhythm of priorities and spiritual practices.

Leaving the quotidian is a good way to shake up and reframe.

And what better place than Frankfurt, Copenhagen, and the Faroe Islands?

This is my last month to serve as a full-time stipendiary priest. After September 30, I’ll take six months to discern what God has in store for me next, but I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t mean serving somehow, somewhere as a priest. For today, I am treasuring every day of this very busy September.

My 97 year old mom continues to slowly decline. I came to Chambersville a few days ago to work remotely while I assisted my brother as caregiver.

Today is Sunday, and it is very difficult for my mom to leave home. Worship for a couple of years for this cradle Southern Baptist has been joining the tv worship offered by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas. It always blows my mind. Who would have thought?

I love to sit with her and join her for worship. She especially enjoys it when I sing along with the service. Most of the music is very familiar.

During the online distribution of communion, they show the music leaders singing. Today it was “As the deer panteth for the waters,” a song I’ve sung since St. Cuthbert days forty years ago. As I sang along today, my heart went back to those early St. Cuthbert Sundays, and singing it with my hand on my heart from a place of deep yearning.

I do spend an awful lot of time pondering the past these pre-retirement days.

Halfway through communion, my mother needed to go to the bathroom. I assisted her as she got up from her recliner, got situated with her walker, and began the slow, stooped-over walk.

As I walked behind my dear mom, spotting her from a possible fall, I continued to sing. Once again placing my hand over my heart, following slowly behind my precious mother tending to the most basic of needs, I realized that this was a sacred walk. I was having the most Holy Communion one could have.

From Psalm 42

As the deer pants for the water
So my soul longs after you
You alone are my heart’s desire
And I long to worship you

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart’s desire
And I long to worship you

You’re my friend
And You are my brother
Even though You are a King
I love You more than any other
So much more than anything

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart’s desire
And I long to worship Thee

I don’t know why after 31 years I can’t remember the date of my ordination to the diaconate. I know it’s the end of June, but I have to look at my ordination certificate to know for sure of the date.

I had great delight this morning when leading Facebook live prayers when one participant remembered my ordination and give thanks.

I spent the morning remembering that day and the people that were there as I drove from Houston to McKinney to be with my 97 year old mom. Yesterday she was admitted to the hospital via ambulance due to confusion, slurred speech and breathing difficulties. Diagnosis still pending.

Just a little over a week ago many of us were together at my mom’s for a modified Jernigan family reunion. Part of my brother’s family had COVID (yep, it’s still around), and we had to do an all too familiar COVID pivot (yep, still doing that)—since he and his wife had planned to host.

Through moving outside in the 90+ degree weather (my mother loved being warm) and smaller family groups gathering, it wasn’t the reunion we’d planned, but it was a great reunion.

As I sit by my mother’s bedside, I am so thankful we had those connections.

On the 31st anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate, I am especially mindful of the many I love that were in Houston at Christ Church Cathedral that hot June day, and especially those I won’t see again this side of heaven.

My Episcopal Aunt Mary who sat on the back porch of my house at the party afterwards with my mother in law, Jeannine, smoking, and proud to have a priest in the family. My sending priest, The Rev. Tom Brindley, who had more influence on my formation than any other clergy. My dad, who would read a lesson at my ordination to the priesthood and with whom I’d go on mission to the newly independent Ukraine.

This day of thinking and praying backwards and forwards has been a kind of retreat. I’ve had so many texts from folks telling of people’s prayers for me and my family. Tomorrow I’ll pull out my computer and work from my mom’s hospital room.

It’s not lost on me that from the view outside my mother’s window I can see a cross.