I’ve been working on the archives of my journal lately. It is a slow process and it will probably take years, but the goal is to organize more than 14 years of daily essays into some form that is accessible should anyone want to go back and search out a particular date. Realizing that I am probably the only one who would want to do that, the task is probably mostly for my sake, but it potentially has some benefit should someone else want to read back essays. As I work my way slowly through the essays, I have experimented with a variety of different ways of organizing the task. I started with the years 2016 and 2017 because there were some issues with the publication of those essays in the old manner. By combining a month’s essays into a single document and changing the document’s format to .pdf, I was able to publish a month’s essays in a much more compact form and consume less digital storage space on the Internet. However, in the next couple of weeks I will begin working with a different organizational pattern, preserving and publishing some significant months in other years before returning to finish 2016 and 2017. The fact that I keep revising my plan of organization is consistent with the way I have lived my life. The process is reminding me of some themes that connect the thousands of essays.

One theme is my personal lack of expertise. There are a lot of essays that begin with me admitting that I am not an expert in the field on which I am writing. This lack of expertise doesn’t stop me from making comments, however. It may be that the words, “I’m no expert, but . . .” are among the most common combinations in my essays.

Another theme in that keeps emerging is that I struggle with time management. I frequently write about the feeling of not having enough time to complete the tasks that I have set before myself. Ministers are considered “self-employed” for tax purposes, and we have a high degree of control over how we organize our work. Throughout my career, I tried to make relationships my first priority. That meant that sometimes I spent hours talking with someone rather than completing administrative tasks. It meant that I would interrupt a work plan to listen to another person. I would go to a bedside, or the home of a grieving family, or sit with someone struggling with a difficult decision while tasks like ordering supplies, organizing receipts, filing paperwork, and cleaning off my desk took a back seat. For most of my working life, there were piles of unsorted papers on my desk, my books sat in piles on flat surfaces, and there was computer and paper work that was undone at the end of nearly every day.

At one point, when I was well into my career, I had a conversation with someone about how I had learned to go home at the end of a day with tasks undone. That person couldn’t understand how I could live with that chaos. She said to me, “I have never left work with undone tasks.” I don’t know if that was actually true. I didn’t have any way to check and I’m not interested in knowing, but it seems to be impossible from my point of view. To have never left work with undone tasks would mean, in my opinion, that the work wasn’t very significant. The Christian ministry is the work of participating in a multiple-generational activity. We don’t run out of work after a lifetime of activity. Our work would never be done.

Looking back after years of active ministry now that I am semi-retired (a designation that in itself indicates that the work isn’t done) I am pleased to find that somehow in the midst of my lack of organizational skills, I did manage to accomplish some things that are very important to me.

Despite having plenty of undone tasks, I did find time to participate in a genuine partnership with my wife. We have learned to work together and grown closer together over the years. Our marriage has carried us through many hard times and we continue to find strength and meaning in being married. Over the years of my life, I have managed to build strong relationships with our children. Being a father has been a blessing for me, and it has also involved hard work. It is meaningful work and I am so pleased that I continue to be close to our children and that they have good memories of growing up. Over the years I have met plenty of people who have suffered from parents who weren’t present for important times in their lives. Their feelings of neglect and even abandonment leave lifelong scars. By the Grace of God, I have avoided leaving such feelings in the lives of our children.

In my active ministry, I was known for my skill at leading meaningful funerals. I always made time, regardless of what else was happening in my life, to be with and listen to grieving families. I worked hard to provide ceremonies that were carefully matched to the needs of those families. I feel that such work was far more important than tasks that I left undone.

I always made time for prayer and study. I maintained disciplines that nurtured my spirit and gave me strength for the long haul. I endured in ministry in part because I was diligent in prayer. I kept up with my profession because I made time to study scripture, read books, and pursue continuing education.

I kept worship and mission at the center of my ministry. I made time for fresh and creative worship and strong preaching. From our worship, we were able to remain connected to service to others. The congregations I served had faithful and meaningful worship and strong programs of service, outreach, and mission.

And somehow, through it all, I kept writing essays. OK, that last one probably isn’t a mark of well-organized time. That doesn’t bother me. Sometimes the people who are most organized fail to accomplish what is most important. Pursuing what is most important in the midst of a bit of disorganization seems to have been a better strategy for me.