so i head home from another youth workers convention. this one was great, but it just wore me out. in the first half of my general session talk yesterday, i kept finding my mind wandering while my mouth was saying something else (especially when i was reading a quote or a passage). this is a terrifying thing — to be standing in front of 2000 or so people, giving a closing convention talk, and have your mind wandering. and then i started to think about the fact that my mind was wandering, and how annoying that was — all the while continuing to speak about identity and our calling to suffer. eventually, i was able to shut that down, somehow, after telling myself (in my mind — while still speaking): you have to get more sleep at the nashville convention. this is happening because you stayed up so late, stupid.

last night, a few of us ys staff went to church brew works for dinner, which is a surreal experience. it’s a beautiful old catholic church that’s been lovingly restored. and the center aisle and all kind of other interior stuff is still in place (to get to the restroom, i had to walk from our table up the center aisle — it felt like i was responding to an alter call!). but it’s also pretty weird seeing the micro-brew tanks up on the alter. after dinner, a good portion of the ys staff who are here gathered in my suite for a last hoorah; but none of us had much hoorah in us. we sat around in a big circle, expecting lively conversation to commence. but everyone was so completely exhausted, we had l-o-n-g conversation lulls constantly. eventually we got an ’embarrassing moments’ kind of thing going, and caught a bit of conversational steam for about 20 minutes, before feeling we could all say goodnight and crash.

i fly home today — can’t wait to see my kids (haven’t seen them since last monday morning when jeannie and i left for the dreaded snow-covered delay-inducing denver).

i’ve updated this list of bloggers from the convention. i’m sure some will have follow-up posts and thoughts.