My apologies for taking leave of blogging for several weeks. I know that’s bad form in the blogosphere but I came to a point where I was out of gas and running on empty. It’s been a crazy few weeks - exciting, exhilarating and exhausting. I’ll give you a thumbnail and then offer a couple of new posts.  At the end of May I launched headfirst into a new initiative focused on taking leadership training to annual conferences within the United Methodist Church.  Each week I’d fly out of town on my day off (Monday) and then speak all day Tuesday, or all day Wednesday or both.  At night I would stay up late working on my sermon (hence no blogging).  Then fly home in time for Thursday and Friday meetings, completing writing the weekend sermons and the normal stuff I do as senior pastor.  Throw in a wedding, a funeral and a few other events and then preach five times each weekend and I found myself, by this last week, dragging.  Sunday night I did not stay to greet after worship, but instead, LaVon and I left immediately for the airport to catch a 7:50 p.m. flight for Colorado.  This week is my annual sermon planning retreat.  While it’s still work, it is a different pace - prayer, long walks in the woods, reading, studying and outlining sermon series.  Then, in the evening, just spending time with LaVon playing.  More on this in another block.  For now I simply want to say, I’m back to blogging.