Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Resetting work patterns
I recently spent eight days on vacation out on the west coast. Since I was traveling from the Cleveland area, returning home was a full day trip. My brother-in-law picked us up from the airport and we were going to treat him and ourselves to some Chinese food upon returning home. Imagine my relief to be home, to see my cats, to eat a non-airport meal, and to sleep in my own bed. I practically sank into our couch to never emerge again.
There was one glitch. When my spouse, Josh, tried to get drinks out of the fridge he quickly realized something was wrong.
“Rachel,” he said, “does this drink seem warm to you?”
Our refrigerator had broken down in our absence. It had created for us a beautiful welcome home gift—a freezer full of melted popsicles and a whole bunch of unsalvageable food.
This was deeply not fun. However, I am here to report to you that with the modern miracle of online shopping and some savings in our bank account1 we were able to quickly order a new refrigerator (the old one came with the house and didn’t seem worth repairing). With said new refrigerator, Josh and I had the gleeful task of adding some groceries to a completely clean slate. No weird condiments or jars of pickles that no one has touched in ages, no mysterious foil freezer packages, and empty space and bright light as far as the eye could see. Getting anything out of the refrigerator is so joyful now.
It’s like the age old tech prompt: Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Having a full refrigerator reset is a little how I feel moving back into my church work after a month away. It’s a chance to start fresh again—which isn’t that just a key part of the Christian life anyway?
Being away from work gives perspective. I’m already pretty reflective about my work (hello writing weekly about it), but stepping away shows what is normal and good and what has just been normalized.
Like my tidy refrigerator, I want to bring my best and brightest back to work. I’m excited to plan ahead for Advent and Christmas worship from a clean slate. I’m happy to check in to see how the admin has gone in my absence. I don’t want to pick up all that was just causing me stress and overwork.2
I find it’s terribly important as someone who has control over my work schedule (mostly) to actually tend to that. I know many pastors who celebrate how busy they are. But often, pastors are in a privileged position to choose whether the day is for study or visitation or community building or something else entirely. If you say yes to everything, you’re bound to be busy. Similarly, I didn’t have to keep four jars of pickles in my fridge. I really didn’t. I was never going to eat them all.
I’m returning from time away ready to prioritize the following:
Creativity. I love music and writing and art and how that overlaps with worship and community in general.
Online/tech skills. I want to see if there’s a way to do some new church ideas around video games and online community. I keep looking to see if someone else is doing this, what if that someone is me?
Small mental health wins. I know I feel better when I go on walks and meditate and journal. Without being burdensome, I can take little steps to make my life better.
Just a little reset toward those things feels similar to how I feel looking into my very, very spacious and clean refrigerator. It was a good time for a reset. If you could step away and turn it off and on again, what would you change?
What I’m watching
I can handle a bit of horror watching if it’s not too late at night, so I’ve been watching The Fall of the House of Usher just in time for Halloween. It’s gruesome (do check content warnings) but has a surprising amount of humor and cleverness. For me, the mystery of the series (why is this family falling apart?) really keeps me watching to the next episode. If you want something less intense but similarly spooky and with a mystery, I actually think Wednesday has some parallels.
DNF Shelf
This is a niche but important update—I’ve added a Did Not Finish shelf to my Goodreads. If you ever want to know the inverse of all my glowing book reviews, this is where I’ll keep track of the books I started but could not finish. Namely, if a book ends up here I didn’t like it. I don’t want to officially rate them because it feels unfair to rate a book I haven’t read entirely. It does then count the book officially as “read” and I’m trying to make peace with this. I’ll still have my own personal tally of fully read books in my BookBuddy app. (This is all very nerdy and I’m hoping you will still like me after knowing these details.)
What life looks like
Fall in Ohio
Honestly I don’t take this for granted. So grateful this wasn’t more than an inconvenience—and that there are rebates when you upgrade to more energy efficient appliances.
Maybe you’ve even noticed a tiny little refresh from the newsletter—I’m going to try a later send time so I can review one more time on Monday mornings.