It may be spring in Taos but it’s feeling like a summer day—Taos style. That means that sitting and walking and eating outside is a delight.

Yesterday, after massages, masked (our therapist, Bonnie, told us that we were her fourth and fifth clients since she had to close at the height of the pandemic), my friend and I were able to eat on the patio of our favorite restaurant.

Today is market day in Taos. My friend and I were front and center when the market opened (the sun is awakening us at 5.30), and the sights and the conversations were full of generosity. I can sit a spell when walking a market if I allow myself to be present with whatever and whomever is in my path.

Buying bread from a local baker and finding the surprise of the art on the bread.

Another vendor giving my friend and me snickerdoodles. Just because.

A conversation with a local gardener about all beautiful scented things. Followed by a conversation with her husband telling me about the gift of being married to her for over fifty years.

A man from the Pueblo who makes all sorts of things to care for our skin and body, gifting me with a lavender soap when I said it was my favorite scent.

Another vendor giving me a small bouquet of flowers after yet another conversation.

Who knew that sitting a spell could result in receiving such generosity.

Brother David Steindal-Rast wrote, “Prayer is not sending in an order and expecting it to be fulfilled. Prayer is attuning yourself to the life of the world, to love, the force that moves the sun and the moon and the stars.”

I’m wondering if a sitting a spell life is in fact prayer—attuning ourselves to Love and the life of the world that is the place where Love choose to dwell.

The Gift. The Generosity.

I’ve found that I’ve been angry recently. A lot. I said something about that to my friend on the drive up from the airport to Taos, and she replied, “Yes, you have begun a lot of our conversations with ‘I’m really angry about……’”

Well. That’s not a look I’m going for but like so many things we don’t like hearing, it’s the truth. Granted, anger can easily turn into depression for me, so getting my anger out in non-hurtful ways is a good thing. I am in hopes that this long weekend of sitting a spell will help me to clear out some of the anger.

When we arrived at our Casa, after we’d unloaded the car, we took a walk to see if the llamas that lived nearby were still there.

The gentle walk was framed by flowers I rarely see in Texas.

And then. Our neighbors the llamas. Which we named Hillary, Kamala, and Stacey.

Sitting a spell can be a slow walk taking time for a pause and yet another.

One of the priests I serve with has been teaching us to sit a spell. The invitation is to slow down and listen as a way of building relationships. For me it’s a way to turn walls into bridges.

I’m taking a vacation which is a fine way to practice sitting a spell. I’m meeting my best friend in New Mexico for a long Memorial Day weekend.

I began my sitting a spell (literally and metaphorically) on the plane over. I always have lots to do to fill the time when traveling, but this trip I decided to put my books and games aside and sit a spell and look out the window. The entire flight.

As I sat a spell and looked out the window, I put my music library on shuffle and, as a song met me where I am, I put it on a new playlist I titled Not Ordinary Time.

The airport was full to the brim with travelers. Plane after plane was queued up waiting its turn on the runway.

Sitting a spell for the two hour flight, the changing landscapes outside my window rivaled any art I’ll see in the museums that will be part of my visit. It was a lectio divina from miles above the earth.

The last time I celebrated Holy Eucharist was at a Wednesday Eucharist in the Diocesan chapel in Houston during Lent, 2020. Two days later the office closed because of the pandemic, and we moved home to work.

For a couple of weeks. Ha.

This third Sunday of Easter, 2021, I will celebrate the Eucharist at St. Paul’s in Navasota, Texas.

Once ordained a priest, always a priest (unless renouncing my vows or being deposed). However, this is the weekend I begin doing priestly things. Again.

First I will travel to Camp Allen on Saturday afternoon to teach at Iona School for Ministry. It will be my first time to teach in person since 2020. As God would have it, I am teaching a class on Reconciliation of a Penitent.

After I preach and celebrate and meet with the Vestry at St. Paul’s, I will return to Camp Allen to meet with the Small Church network on Sunday and Monday. A few members of my team will be leading congregational leaders of churches with less than 75 members to process what they’ve learned during the pandemic and how they can apply that to what God is leading them to do next.

It will be my first time to be part of leading an in-person retreat in over a year.

After thirteen months of driving almost nowhere, I’ll be back in my office on wheels—also called my Prius. Doing prayer and lectio divina on the Diocesan roads.

But first I have to finish my sermon for tomorrow and my PowerPoint for tonight. And ponder again what it really means to be a priest.