Getting serious about my sabbatical...

This week I am starting to get serious about my 2015 sabbatical.  My

council is VERY supportive of this experience AND they want to be creative about what they will encounter as a part of my leave-taking and returning.  That is one of the benefits of working with the Lily Foundation:  they not only offer financial resources for clergy and congregational renewal, but they have a time-tested history of guidance.  In this, both the individual clergy person and the church get the most out of the sabbatical.

For example, when I brought my idea - and the grant application - to my council of leaders and asked, "What was YOUR experience with my predecessor's three sabbaticals?" in less than a New York second the unanimous reaction was:  "We just hung on by our finger nails for his return!" In other words, while it was wonderful for the clergy, it was agony for the church leadership. And if the literature around clergy sabbaticals is to be trusted, this lament is not unique.

So later this week I will start to meet with a team of lay leaders who want to help me shape my renewal time AND discern ways for the congregation to share in the process.  This will be a time of rest, reflection and renewal for me: my deepest hope is to spend four months in Montreal reading, walking, praying, learning/speaking Quebecois French and practicing my upright bass. Getting out of my own culture and language helps me get out of my head; making time to walk gets me grounded in both my body and the very different terrain; and doing so during the Lent/Easter/Pentecost arc of the liturgical year feels "right" for me at some primal level that I intuitively want to trust.

Our council started to read Henri Nouwen's small book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, this month.  And one of the insights has to do with listening to God's call even when you can't comprehend it's deepest meaning.  Nouwen, for example, found himself smitten by Rembrandt's painting of the parable of the prodigal son.  He ached to contemplate it deeply - he needed to spend time in the visual wisdom of God's grace this massive painting celebrates - he yearned to know what this creation was saying to his soul.  So, he gave himself over to its mystery - and in time found himself leaving one chapter of his life for another as he wandered in the wilderness.  Eventually, he found solid ground again serving and living in the L'Arche community - Daybreak - outside of Toronto where he could fully integrate his head with his heart.

That is what a lot of this sabbatical feels like for me, too.  I can't really tell you why I am "in love" with Montreal - but I am.  Nor can I fully explain why my heart and soul feel nourished playing jazz on the upright bass - but it is true.  And after 30 years of ministry without a "real" sabbatical (my doctoral work was done in month long chunks of residency over five years) I am really tired.  Not so much with ministry, as with needing to be "on" most of the time.  It feels like the time has come for a deep rest with lots of time set aside for listening and silence.  And music-making, of course.

Two poems by Mary Oliver point me in the right direction. The first, "Mysteries, Yes" evokes the deep but uncertain direction of this sabbatical.

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
   to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
   mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
   in allegiance with gravity
      while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
   never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the 
   scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
   who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
   "Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
   and bow their heads.

The second, "The Man Who Has Many Answers," points to the way I make sense of the mysteries and hold them together within:

The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.

Clearly my soul keeps reminding me that it is time to make some more music and follow the flow of the Spirit - and then bow my head.