Nap Time
When I was in parish ministry my workweek was -- well actually Sunday through Sunday the years we lived next door to the church in a rectory sitting on the highway inviting needy passersby and never a moment’s peace 24/7 
-- but Tuesday through Sunday. Sunday afternoon was nap time. I thought I was the only minister secretly indulging a long Sunday afternoon nap until the Sunday morning at Grace Church when Dottie Wilhite said something to me about, “... today after your nap.” I said "How did you know about my nap?" Dottie said, "Jack never missed his nap, every priest has a Sunday afternoon nap," so my secret was out.
-- but Tuesday through Sunday. Sunday afternoon was nap time. I thought I was the only minister secretly indulging a long Sunday afternoon nap until the Sunday morning at Grace Church when Dottie Wilhite said something to me about, “... today after your nap.” I said "How did you know about my nap?" Dottie said, "Jack never missed his nap, every priest has a Sunday afternoon nap," so my secret was out.
The weekly run-up to Sunday -- basically Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning -- is exhausting in every way. It’s like having a weekly AdventChristmas and LentEaster -- which is why parish ministers commonly “take off” the week after Easter and the week after Christmas: it was exhausting and rest is essential for everything from physical to emotional to just plain recovering one’s sanity.
So where was this train headed. Oh yes: my work week.
During our (me, Linda, Tass -- the older ones were grown and gone) search process after my ordination we had a call from a very nice church in Pennsylvania Deutsch Country. St. Luke’s owned a block right in town, on which sat the old stone church, the old stone rectory, and the newer stone parish house (fellowship hall in some denominations). We were looking forward to it eagerly until Trinity, Apalachicola appeared on the horizon and stole my heart. The Pennsylvania diocesan bishop required that there be a written contract between his priests and their vestries, and as we were mutually anticipating my accepting the call from St. Luke’s, the vestry sent me a draft contract. It included the provision, “The rector will have one day off a week, generally Tuesday.” As part of the negotiation process, I fired back at them that yes there would be one day off a week and it would be whatever day I chose. Not many years out of the Navy, I sure as living aitch wasn’t getting back into any situation where anyone told me what to do, much less what my day off would be. They accepted my point. Before we got much farther with the negotiation, though, I had come down to teach my class at the University of West Florida, visited with Bishop Duvall and the vestry at Trinity, Apalachicola, and embraced my destiny eating oysters and mullet, where in actual fact, as indicated above, there was never a day off!
Off course again. But because wandering comes with age, it also comes without apology. Which brings to mind that during our Navy tour at Naval Station, Mayport, Florida, the station had a runway and an aircraft, a twin-engine SNB. It looked like this
except seems to me it was white with orange trim. Sometimes we used it to fly up to a surplus depot in Georgia to spot things our base might be able to use, and send our truck up to get them. I was not a Navy pilot, but sometimes on the flights up and back, LT Frank Fullerton would let me sit in the cockpit with him and fly the plane. He’d tell me, keep it at a thousand feet. I tried, but invariably kept letting it ease down to a couple hundred feet, in which case Frank would take the wheel back himself and lift us back up to a thousand. So maybe wandering off track isn’t so age-related after all.
Speaking of which, the Naval Station had a helicopter too. While I was a LTJG I had to stand OOD watches, overnight about once or twice a month; and when things were quiet and when the CDO was LCDR Gus Bello, we'd go up in the helo and fly south over the Jacksonville Beach area, very pretty at night. The helo was like riding in a high-flying very noisy car, but Gus never offered to let me fly it. My next enjoyment of Navy helicopters was years later, aboard USS TRIPOLI during the Vietnam War years, flying back and forth between San Francisco and San Diego every weekend while the ship was in Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for repairs. We had the ship's helo, don't remember what it was. When Marines were aboard we had 46s and 53s.
As a parish priest, my workweek was Tuesday through Sunday morning, nap, Monday off to continue relaxing, then back at it.
Monday off. Tuesday late-morning healing service with Eucharist. Wednesday evening Bible study. Thursday, Friday sermon prep. Saturday panic. Sunday morning hard at it. Sunday afternoon nap. Monday off.
Yesterday's nap was three to five. Worked for me.
TW+ in +Time