Punctuation matters.

I've been retired for three days. Right now it feels more like the beginning of the same sort of Summer vacation that I've mostly enjoyed for the past 22 years. In August, when most of the people I know head back to work it will feel different. I'll let you all know how when I get there.

For now, I'm trying to figure out what this new life is going to look like. I'm starting out with a two-part plan. I'm going to ride more (my bicycle(s) that is) and I'm going to write more. One piece of that part of the plan is this blog.

I've moved out of the last 22 years of campus ministry with a pile of thoughts, sermons, notes, questions and, just maybe, a few insights that need to be sorted, sifted, saved or shelved. I'm thinking that this might be the place for some of that to happen. Hence, the "title" of this workplace, "WHAT matters" 

The lack of punctuation in the title is not an oversight. It could be a question, as in, "I wonder what really matters?" or it could be a declaration, as in, "WHAT I spend my time thinking, writing and talking about really does matter. A dear friend and mentor of mine once said that as he got older there were fewer and fewer "hills" on which he was willing to die. And when he got really old, there were fewer and fewer "hills" he was even willing to climb. I'd like to climb the hills that matter.

So, I'll be focusing on the three "R's," I'll be reading, and riding, and wRiting and waiting to see how each shapes the next days of the journey