At this point in the year, I don’t have much left in me. The sermons take more and more effort to write; I really need those weeks of study leave this summer to read and study; all year long the thoughts have been flowing out, and now I need some new thoughts flowing back in.

Or to put it another way, on Thursday, supposedly the day when I write the week’s sermon, I made very little progress. I worked for eight or nine hours and all I had to show for it was a sketchy outline; usually I would have the whole thing written. So I took yesterday off, and (grouchily) sat down this afternoon to finish the sermon. I wrote some, but it was utter crap. I stopped, and finished reading a depressing mystery novel in which the whole world is depicted is corrupt and where evil remains unpunished. That put me in a bad mood, so when I sat down to write, absolutely nothing came out. So I made dinner, and had a mug of tea for the caffeine. Felt better, but still couldn’t write, so I took a short walk: down to the end of the pedestrian bridge over Route 18, where I stood and looked out over the harbor. By now the sun was low in the sky, and in its light even the fishing boats, usually so squat and ugly, looked beautiful. I headed back home, still grouchy; but by the time I got home, the mood had lifted, and I went upstairs and sat down and wrote the whole sermon in under two hours. And with the holiday on Monday, perhaps I will have enough down time that I won’t have this problem with next week’s sermon.