an adjective-defying experience

i realize there's a bit of irony in using the compound adjective "adjective-defying" to describe my experience this weekend...  but i'm not sure there really is just one word that would work.   "awesome" doesn't quite touch it - tho it's close.

i went "home" this weekend.  home to a place where i now know very few people, home to a place that still brings me so much comfort and safety just by being in it.  i cheered (literally, out loud) when i crossed the Michigan border, and i kid you not, at one point about an hour later, i suddenly realized that i'd been grinning like an idiot for awhile... :)

i spent two glorious days in a luxury, eco-friendly hotel.

i ate - and ate - and ate! - amazing food: scrambled eggs, bacon, roasted potatoes, rye toast, flatbread pizza LOADED with feta and kalamata olives, chicken corn chowder, minestrone, fish and chips.

i had red wine and orange juice and hot buttered rum (my favorite espresso drink at the best coffee shop in the world).  i had an amazing cup of french-press coffee.

i spent time with two dear friends i haven't seen in years.

i worshiped with them and with some other friends at a church that has grown astronomically since the last time i was there.

i listened to beautiful music - classical, pop, worship, Irish (in the Irish pub where i had the fish and chips), and folk.

and i read.  an entire book.  cover to cover.  and it changed my life.  is changing.  will change.

there are no words that could ever completely describe these two days spent doing all these amazing, blessed and life-altering things with the Lord - but here are a few that just begin to get at it:

beautiful.  wonderful.  tough.  amazing.  unexpected.  lovely.  abundant.  peaceful.  right.  true.  dangerous.  blessed.  intimate.  challenging.  restful.  pure.  long.  short.  (far too short.)  lonely.  communal.  lush.  restorative.  informative.  formative.  social.  sweet.  transformative.  

i'm sure there are others that describe it as well.

i hope to be able to unpack some of it over the next few weeks.  stay tuned.

and in the meantime: go buy yourself a copy of Dan Allender's Sabbath...  i won't tell you that it will change your life.  but it did change mine.  and it's a good book.