"My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday." - Rodney Dangerfield

It's 7:20 a.m. Saturday morning and my body has declared today will include no activity more vigorous than getting up from my chair for another cup of coffee. And even that's questionable.

I got a lot done yesterday, but boy am I paying for it today.
The garden is ready for Pam to plant the year's veggies. The raised beds are all filled to the brim with added compost from one of the two bins, the soil is now turned, raked, and smoothed, waiting only for seeds.
The space between the beds is covered with landscape cloth and then about 4" of cedar wood chips.
I didn't count how many trips I made with a full wheelbarrow but the number is in the dozens.
Four new blueberry bushes have been planted on the far side of the raised beds.
The fruit tree that died last year - one of nine that I planted two years ago - has been removed, along with its anti-deer fencing.
Sally's e-brake handle has been re-attached. It took channel locks, an awl, and a C-clamp, but I think it's on for good this time.

So yes, I feel good about the progress I made. Ideally I'd get back at it today, but my first priority is my class tomorrow morning. And if I feel this whooped then I won't be near the top of my game. I meet with Levy at 10:30 this morning and we'll spend an hour together talking about the chapters in Genesis he read this week and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That's my only must-do on today's agenda.

There are things in life that move me, touch me in my stomach. Some pieces of music, reports about children who suffer, a well written story....
There are things I think are supposed to move me that don't. Or at least don't like they seem to touch other people.
Perhaps because I've been going to church all my life and grew up in a church that had communion once a month I don't find that observance emotionally moving. My mind understands the meaning and appropriateness of the ordinance but I'm puzzled by those who talk about how special it is to them.
Christmas. I don't have vivid childhood memories of family Christmases that warm my heart like the smell of frying BACON. When our kids were little our Christmases were just the four of us. We lived 100's of miles from extended family and my profession prohibited going over the river and through the woods to be with extended family. Also because of my profession we lived a pretty meager life, so there wasn't money to fill up the space beneath the tree or have a blow-out Christmas meal. I was "on duty" for the days and weeks before and felt the pressure to coordinate special services. The day itself was certainly fun, watching the boys open their presents (they were never the greedy little brats our culture cultivates at that time of year) but I think it's different for the kids who experience it more than the parents who watch. So absent the warm fuzzy memories and with the current commercialization and general cheapening - never mind the biblical stretching required to make Christmas a quasi-spiritual event - and the season often leaves me more irritated than "blessed."

OK, here I enter ground sure to mark me as a heretic, an insensitive clod, or worse.
Easter doesn't move me like I think it's supposed to and like it touches and inspires others. Maybe that's also because I spent 40+ years trying to find yet another way to celebrate the resurrection in a new and different way for the church I was pastoring at the time. The pressure to create a "wonderful" Easter service is something most pew people don't realize. Or maybe I've got a rock where my heart is supposed to be.
Unlike Christmas, an observance of the resurrection has at least some biblical basis. We're pretty sure that's why the early church met on Sunday instead of the Sabbath. But there's no indication they did anything special on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
(Yeah, that really is the way they figure out each year's Easter date.)
It's possible, and maybe even likely that the early church paid special attention to the Passover date, knowing that was the time of the crucifixion, but absent any biblical mention of an Easter observance I'm not going to feel too guilty about my general lack of deep emotion at an Easter service.
I'll drive my stake in the ground over my absolute conviction regarding the truth of the resurrection and its implications for my life and the life to come! NO question or doubt. It is, for me, a defining reality that shapes everything I am.
But I confess that tomorrow morning I'll feel more than a little guilty that I'm not where others seem to be emotionally as we sing, read, and hear about Christ's resurrection.

There. I said (wrote) it. I'm reprobate.

Now, at 8:15, I really need to get moving. That starts with shaving and getting dressed. After that it's all above and beyond.