I'm going to take a blogging break for awhile.

I realized while in California (the place I feel most open and peaceful in the world) that blogging has kept me from writing other things that matter to me. For awhile I found blogging exciting and inspiring. I loved sitting down and formulating thoughts about my day for friends and family to read. I even went through a phase of thinking about how to blog an event while the event was happening ...an odd feeling of participating in something but watching it from a distance at the same time in order to write about it. Lately, blogging has felt more like an obligation than a hobby. I know my family appreciates hearing what's up in our household, but I need to claim my creative thoughts & space for myself for awhile. I may be back one day, I may not. But for now farewell.

Back in Berkeley for a week, visiting friends. The sun keeps shining and the roses, cherry trees and magnolias are in full bloom. Blissfully relaxing and warm. So good to be here and see those I love.

I love being home these days: catching up on tasks that have waited months to be done, going for a walk in the afternoon sunshine, and trying out new recipies now that I finally have the time to shop, bake and cook. Between the fresh biscuits for a surprise breakfast-in-bed on Tuesday, the Persian Rice Pilaf on Wednesday and the Banana Cake today, however, I don't think my waistline likes the fact that I'm home so much!

It's been four years since I've lead a worship service for a congregation on a Sunday morning. In the meantime I've worked as a flight attendant and union officer (with varying degrees of satisfaction and pleasure) so I'm not sure what possessed me to step back into worship leadership again.

It's an odd dichotomy -- being a worship leader & a flight attendant -- the people I move with in these two circles are so extremely different from one other. Standing in front of my Unitarian congregation yesterday morning the dissonance resounded in my trembling hands. One moment everything would feel utterly right and familiar, and the next I'd find myself thinking "what the hell am I doing here?" Fears of being controversial/critiqued/kick-out-again welled up parching my mouth, only to be replaced by wandering musings of what it would be like to preach again in this completely new community. A conflicted morning all around.

Marching the streets of Toronto in the name of peace once more. Immersed in a myriad of colourful flags and skins. People of every race and creed, children with peace doves, adults with peace posters: "Evolve Consciously, Choose Peace Now" (my favourite one today). Accompanied by immense puppets depicting life and death. Shouting with the crowds, walking in silence, catching up with Brian on our mornings in our respective churches, and then joining together in an Interfaith Peace Vigil .... a satisfying way to spend the afternoon together. Sometimes it feels so fruitless to speak for peace as war continues to be waged and bodies continue to fall. And then sometimes, like today, it seems OK to watch, shout, listen and be seen.

Hope emerges again, if only for a second.