James Taylor, still "theraputic" after all these years . . .

This has been a hard week or so . . . we had a funeral this past Saturday. The night before I responsed to a death call at a local hospital. On Saturday after the funeral, I responded to another death call at another local hospital.

It's what I do . . . it is taking it's toll, but . . . it's what I do. I spend a lot of time with people before they die. I spend a lot of time with their families afterward.

Truth is . . . and I hope I am not bragging . . . but I don't know of another pastor who walks with people toward death as I do . . . or who officiates a funeral as well as I do.

Naw ... that's not bragging. It's a fact. I have this core value that death should not be something we fear and avoid . . . but embrace as the start of a new journey, when the time for death comes.

Yet . . . today, I found myself drained, tired, and a bit weepy because the funeral tonight and the one tomorrow morning . . . I knew them both as well as you can know someone in being their pastor these past 5 years. I knew them. I loved them as friends.

So, I needed to take a break, but didnt have time to go to the Grapevine Guitar Works to hide for a while. I thought to myself, "Self, what do you need right now?"

My self answered back, "Give me some Sweet Baby James." I got it, and I'm back in the saddle preparing to do "what I do."

James Taylor . . . what an artist, even after all these years.

God grace still amazes me . . . ><>