pilgrimage - day #33

having an agenda...

Each morning I awake with an agenda.  Some days it is scheduled activities (i.e. preschool, Bible study, dance class, music class, teaching, etc.), and others it is more of a plan on action (i.e. need to vacuum that messy floor, need to run an errand, etc.).

I sometimes wonder what I'd do without my agenda.  What if I were on a pilgrimage to another country with nothing more than a bag on my back and the dirt road under my feet.  Where would my thoughts take me then?

The Witnesses speak of the "new system."  A new Earth where there is abundance of food, no worries, no wanting for anything.  Without my daily agenda, where would I be?  What would I think about?  Would I feel needed?  Would I get the same satisfaction in accomplishments?

Today is no exception.  Zoe's music lessons have been changed to Thursday mornings at 10.  Zoe also has her first day of Tap and Ballet classes this evening.  She is particularly excited about the tap classes, as all little girls are.  The tap shoes are so fun - even as an adult.  I loved the tap class I took 2 years ago.  It seems like just yesterday that I took the class, but it became a pain to get myself out the door for a 6:30 class.  Between dinner, getting myself ready, and feeding a baby (Eva was an infant at the time) I was always stressed at the class.  But it was still fun!

The good thing about this pilgrimage is that I don't have an agenda.  I am following a 40-day study, but I also am participating in two other Bible studies.  One begins this Sunday at church; we are working on the parables of Jesus.  The other is my studying with Bonnie.  I get such fulfilment from the studies with Bonnie, that I can't imagine stopping the times together.

One agenda item I am seriously considering eliminating is my commitment to the Division of Congregational Life.  I took on the position when I thought I would have a lot of summer meetings and the convention would take place in September.  However, after our August meeting we postponed the convention until next spring.  Every other person in the committee is retired or old enough that meeting on a morning at 10am is nothing but a fun outing.  For me, it's an agenda item that I can't continue to commit.  So today I have to formulate a letter or something to send out to the group.  I just don't have the time to continue on the committee, and sometimes I think it's important to admit to creating an over-taxed agenda.

Today's Scripture
Pslams 139: 1-6
O Lord, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; 
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; 
you are familiar with all my ways. 
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.
You hem me in - behind and before; 
you have laid your hand upon me. 
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 
too lofty for me to attain.