A spiritual summer

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As the country starts to open up, my summer is getting busier. I am attending an two online conferences in the next month. The first is General Assembly, the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association, where I am a delegate for my congregation. My wife and I did a reading for the Summer Solstice Celebration video contributed by the Covenant of UU Pagans. The second conference is Eliot Institute, a series of UU camps in Seabeck, Washington. I am on staff for the July camp. 

I have lots of vacation time that went unused during the pandemic, so I am taking all the days off for both these conferences. I am looking forward to rest, learning, connection, and to hopefully to a much needed spiritual recharging.

My novel is going well, at over 70,000 words now, it is about halfway done. I hit a slump back in April, but I've been getting feedback from several beta readers who kindly agreed to read it for me and give me their comments. I've been doing lots of editing the past few months. I still hope to finish the first draft by the end of the year.

I have more posts about my novel on my Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/chrisstrublewrites. The posts automatically become public after two weeks. You don't have to be a patron to read them.

Finally I want to acknowledge that today is Juneteenth. I first learned about this day when I attended high school in Texas. Our family lived not far from Galveston, where the event that inspired the holiday happened. I just learned today that 48 states had already made it a state holiday. I applaud the Congress and President Biden for making this day a federal holiday, and giving it the recognition it deserves.

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