Checking in

And counting down...

It’s mid-afternoon and I’ve organized the books in my office, washed the couch pillows, and cleaned the leaves out of the fish pond.

I have a million urgent unanswered emails but anything that requires any complex thinking is not happening today.

First thing in the morning after sending the kids off to school, I jumped in the van, put on Reputation, turned it way up, and drove down the street to my polling station.

No line this morning. Is that good or bad?

Now, we wait.

How am I holding up? As I just texted a friend who asked, “Wearying existential dread but otherwise fine.”

Staying well nourished eating my daughter’s Halloween candy. (Don’t worry, she has braces and we have an arrangement.)

If you’re like me, you’ve spent much of the day checking in with people you know. So many chats, back and forth, some with old friends going back decades, others with people I’ve met in the past few years. Some I’ve never met in person but we’ve been through a lot together.

Connecting in this way has been life-giving. It’s the reason Robby, Jemar, Diana, and I decided to start up the Convocation Unscripted a few months back. Finding sanity and comfort in each other’s company, we wanted to extend that outward.

In that spirit, we’re changing things up this week. We’ll be doing a live Webinar on Thursday, 5pm ET. We have no idea what we’ll be talking about at that point, but there’s a pretty good chance we’ll need to talk. With this format, you get to join in.

We have room for 500; click below, and you’ll get the link. Cameras and audio will only be on for the four of us, but we’ll have the chat open for interaction, encouragement, and questions. If you’re finding the need for companionship and a space to process in community, we’d love to have you join us.

If you missed our last episode, “Uncertainty, Courage, & Refusing to Obey in Advance,” you can catch that here. It’s a somber one, but I think an important one.

(You can read a summary of it here from Baptist News Global.)

For Southern hemisphere readers, tune in later today to ABC’s Planet America. I’ll be giving live commentary on the religious vote. For everyone else, please send your thoughts and prayers. Live TV is hard enough when the fate of the country isn’t being decided in real time.

Speaking of TV, I was on PBS over the weekend. I really love John Yang:

Between now and my Australian airtime, I plan to head to the gym, find something else to clean, make some pasta and meatballs, and then see what our future holds.

I have no idea what the days ahead have in store, but I’m glad to be connected with each of you.

Comments are open on this post—help me pass the time by telling me how you’re passing the time. Is it only women who are cleaning obsessively? Please tell me it’s not…