Retreats and Time Well Wasted

It was hard to get myself geared up for the presbytery retreat I had committed myself to attending this first week in August. It's Vacation Bible School week and it still takes me awhile to generate a sermon so I hated to take two whole days out of my schedule.  Anyway, this week I'm preaching on the practice of "listening for transformation" using the story of Jesus' conversation with the Syrophonecian woman.  Well, a comment was made at this retreat that transformation is an exchange: you have to exchange an old idea, value, program (fill in the blank) for a new idea, value, or possibly a program to take root.  Ooo la la a sermon start. Time well wasted.