If you have been following this blog then your reward will be in heaven because you haven't had seen much return for your vigilance thus far. 'Events' over the past weeks have meant that energy and opportunity for writing has been at a premium - well, non existent really.
I am grateful that I have had the time to really engage with them - even if it wasn't what I really had in mind when I first began thinking about a sabbatical, many months ago.
Someone once said that what is most personal is also most particular - in other words, what we learn in own experience is usually true for other people in theirs. A lot of my sermons work along this line - I listen to what the scriptures are saying to me and then offer some of those reflections to others in the hope that what has been spoken to this pilgrim will speak to others. The writer and Catholic Priest, Henri Nouwen, whose last years were spent working in L'Arche Communities alongside severely disabled people, was a big believer in this approach. If you have read his books or if you ever heard him (as I did once - all whirling arms and elastic facial expressions and heavily dutch accented English) then you know that he would open his struggles and discoveries before others - his vulnerability was strangely and truly powerful. However, sometimes what is personal is just not for public consumption - sometimes, time needs to pass. So I have little reflection to offer on the recent events that have absorbed my time - who knows, it may all become public in time - but some things are best kept between ourselves and God, who knows the secrets of our hearts.