Addendum

I have another bit I could have shared, adding another mercy to my story about the balls we juggle and the balls we drop. This snippet’s too good to miss.

Several weeks ago, a couple days after my conversation with Ken, I received an email from another friend. Only this fellow’s also in my parish. I’m (as he likes to say) his reverend. This means that he’s one of those we pastor-types imagine we are spinning and juggling and dashing about to impress, the ones who’ll rush off in a huff if we blow up any of our ecclesiastical chores. This fellow, thank God, lives outside that circle. “I’ve had you in mind lately,” he wrote, “and hoping that you’re managing to hold everything together these days. You certainly won’t hear anything from us if you miss a few things, intentionally or not.”

Intentional. Or not. If a goof or mishap is what’s needed, blunder away, he said.

A few days later, the two of us took a walk in the rain. More like a monsoon, we were drenched down to our skivvies. I don’t know where such a thing lands on the productive management grid. But it surely felt good to be human, a very wet human.

My friend, in the email assuring me it was mighty fine to roll a gutter ball, concluded with Garrison Keillor’s sign off: Be well, do good work, and stay in touch. I pass those words to you, as they were passed to me.