I returned to my newspaper job after my four-month sabbatical spent in Chicago. I didn't sleep very well last night, butterflies. But everyone was so gracious and welcoming. My computer fired right up. I started working on a story.

It felt in some ways that I had been gone forever -- or not long at all.

In childhood summers, I loved the feeling of anticipation of going back to school. In grade school at St. Charles, the same classmates returned year after year and so we came back to familiar faces and settings, though changed in cellular ways by the long summer.

There were a few changes in the newsroom in my four months away, but not many. People looked great. It reminded me that throughout our lifespan, we are given beginnings, ends and new beginnings in old places.

The experience at Rush University Medical Center in chaplaincy training changed me at a cellular level, I suspect, but I've known for weeks that it would take getting back into my job, back into my old routine, to finally understand the changes. The process of processing begins. I feel blessed to be here.

Happy New Year!

(S-R archive photo)

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