It's a word I've been hearing a lot this last week - a week in which physical and mental exhaustion has loomed ever larger and my ratty levels have been getting higher and higher.

So here it is.  On the one hand I really enjoy, and feed on, the banter, disagreement, playfulness, profundity and even banality of the stuff that floats around cyberspace.  On the other hand I am constantly challenged by questions of justice, of poverty, of what it really means to be a disicple of Jesus.  But on the other hand... (its OK my Jewish ancestry allows me more than two hands with which to weigh things up!).

On the one hand, by UK standards I have a modest income, work long hours, and live a fairly basic lifestyle.  On the other hand by world standards I have an enormous income, enviable freedom and live in luxury.

On the one hand I am enjoying researching academic theology and believe that one day it will have a practical outworking.  On the other hand there are the day to day practicalities of attempting to lead a small congregation through humungous (spelling?) transition at a time when daily more people hit major personal crises.

On the one hand is a call to lead a church, on the other to care for them, and on the third (!) to be their servant.  How do I reconcile being paid by people with needing to challenge them about disicpleship?  How much does one who pays the piper have the right to call the tune?

Finding balance is incredibly tricky, and I am really bad at it!  I think that life is so incredibly complicated that I could send myself insane trying to work out just what I ought to worry about.  So instead I plod on doing the best I can and every now and then needing a little splenic venting!

I suspect I will spend the rest of my life trying to find this balance, and never finally succeed.  Maybe being aware of the questions is a step in the right direction?  Any thoughts from those who manage it better than I?

Cambridge was interesting!  Made me glad I'm working with Manchester as the thought of having to express my literature review in 7k words is too horendous for words.  It was interesting to hear about people's work and in some ways it gave me a little more confidence in mine.  Tiring but helpful, I think, even if the room (in Wesley House) was like an icebox, but that's another story.

I stayed over with a friend (in a place called Over) and it was good to catch upon their church news (even if their church did not want me four years ago...) and to relax for a bit in what is proving an ever-increasingly stressful phase of life.

On the way home the exhaust on the Saxo blew - big time, deafeningly - so I was glad I only had about 20 miles to go and that the traffic police had other fish to fry.  Now it is in the garage having a new catalytic converter and a new backbox.  This will make a large hole in £400.  Ouch.

I ought to be tapping away at my essay but I am so utterly exhausted that catching upon emails, reading blogs (and trying to support people in ever more convoluted muddles who keep phoning) is about all I'm fit for.  This evening I am leading the Ascension service and I am hoping that somewhere in that I will find a point of divine contact and rest.

This is my designated annual study week.  That is of itself something of a joke since I already have a service to lead on Thursday (Ascension for anyone who is ignorant of these things, like most of my Deacons, despite it being in the church notices countless times) have yet another mega-pastoral crisis emerging and yesterday had to attend two urgent meetings at very short notice - one with our architect and another with school governors.  In a moment of total insanity I agreed to attend the Cambridge DPT presentation of literature reviews -partly because I thought it would be interesting and partly because I thought I might learn something - I now have three 8k papers to read before tomorrow!  The only consolation is that having glanced through them, the standard of writing seems no better than mine!

I am meant to be writing a 12k essay (Manchester requirements are different) on my literature review.  Yesterday I wrote about 4k words and then, reading over them and marking up changes, virutally rewrote the whole lot.  It reminded me of my early and late days in industry.  In the early days I'd write a report and my supervisor would virtually rewrite it, towards the end other people would write reports and I'd do the same for them.  Now I find I am in both places at once - the novice writing the essays and the experienced reoprt writer editing the clumsy prose.

Today I need to get an advert to the local press for our Pentecost events, deliver batches leaflets to be delivered house to house, write another 8k words (no chance) and all before I leave for GB at 5:30.  Hmm.  Working for a living was so much easier.  Blogging as a displacement technique perhaps...

UPDATED!

Then my computer ate my essay, I mean really ate it, gone, phut, one moment I was saving it (something I tend to do every couple of paragraphs!), next it did not exist.  So much for perseverence of the saints, or some such computer equivalent.  After messing about I managed to descend into the hell of files with weird names and find a temporary fastsave version (phew) only five minutes older than the work I'd done, and now I have about three versions on different storage media - and a new hard copy.  Oh yes, and for half a day's work I now have a tidied up 4k words and nothing new added.  Grr!  Moral of the story - bring back pens and paper.