Today my long service leave ended and I am officially retired. I have been feeling rather raw all week, wanting to pull the blankets over my head, or some such equivalent of going fishing! As I woke up today this poem started to come to me.
Breakfast on Shifting Sand Easter 3: John 21:1-19 Like Peter – raw – I cover too before I leap and swim to you. Whatever stripped me in the night would surely draw your probing sight, and after breakfast on the shore your questions search me to the core. Though I’ve denied, my love is strong – Give me your trust, let me belong. I felt so weak I had to weep, yet I was called to feed your sheep, and for your sake I sought the source, and tended flocks and stayed the course. I know that when I heed your voice I draw in more than at my choice. As I grow old, what comes to me? I fear the time I won’t be free to do what I might long to do, but still in love I’ll follow you. Barbara Messner 1/05/2022
Barb, poet priest 
Beautiful and poignant, and so very much the feeling I had when I retired. Blessings surround this time and the tending that will come to you.
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