Saturday, April 11, 2009

Holy Week Sabbatical

Holy Week has always been a time of Sabbatical for me. Especially the days from Thursday through Easter. I know it sounds crazy for a pastor to make such a statement. After all, aren't these days the busiest days of the church year?!? And yet, I have always tried to slow them down, and allow them to be all about the worship events. As much as possible I have refused to schedule weddings on Easter weekend; I have refrained from visiting folks, unless they land in the hospital or have a real crisis in their life at the moment; I have kept all meetings off the calendar. It has not been particularly hard to do these things, as most people in the church are pretty focused on the holiday, or Spring Break from school, and engaged in family activities more than church activities (except the worship.) So even though there is work for me in terms of getting ready for the various worship experiences, several sermons or meditations to write, liturgies to plan, and all the myriad details of making sure all the candles, sound systems, etc. are set properly, there is a sense of Sabbatical time to all of it for me. For instance, I myself prepare the Fellowship Hall for the Maundy Thursday celebration. I recreate, [somewhat, with the help of a member who owns an Import store with merchandise from Morocco] an "Upper Room" atmosphere. We set up a station for washing feet in the center of the room on a Turkish rug, with basins and pitchers and grass baskets, etc. I surround that with the round dining tables and spread around the room lots of candles. It creates a very effective mood for the worship. All this set-up takes me about 2 hours, but I approach it with a sense of spiritual practice, a form of service to the people coming and to God. It is a time to reflect upon the coming worship, even to identify with those disciples Jesus sent on ahead to prepare the room for the supper that last night before his death.

All the preparation for the events of this weekend provide the same sort of reflective time for me. In a very real way time slows down and I somewhat glide through these three days into the Easter celebration. I am able to prepare what I need to do with moments of reflection along the way and without stressing over getting everything done. It is nice to be able to find such a rhythm of reflection in the midst of my regular work (although holiday times are hardly "regular"). I wish there were a way to incorporate such a relaxed, less-stressed out rhythm into my regular work schedule.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

A Birthday Gift to Myself

It was a type of "mini-sabbatical" today. Since it was my birthday I decided to take most of the day "off" from work. An additional round of golf for the week was my gift to myself. About 9 a.m. I called my regular golf partner, Frank, to see what he was doing for the day, and then we spontaneously visited a course we have played before, but not our regular course. The day was beautiful, bright blue skies, with clouds floating by in lazy fashion. It is a slightly easier course than we normally play, but even so, Frank shot one of his best rounds in a long time, an 81! I told him it was my "gift" to him (to let him beat me on my birthday! I shot an 87, still pretty good.) Being in a good mood after that, Frank bought me lunch at his favorite French Cafe. We enjoyed Prosciutto d'Amore on ciabbata bread sandwiches, and French coffee! Nice, relaxing morning! After getting cleaned up I then spent a little time in the afternoon engaging in pastoral care work, visiting some of my parishioners who live at East Ridge Retirement Village. I know you are not supposed to work on a "sabbatical," but I have been needing to see some of these folks for quite some time and they were very pleased to see me. Pastoral care, especially of this sort, is actually very enjoyable and even somewhat relaxing for me, sort of like visiting good friends. Especially since the conversations for these folks include some sharing of my life and of events and activities at the church, as a way of sharing news and connecting them with the wider world, as well as listening to them share about their lives, their families and friends, etc.

These sorts of days need to be a regular part of all of our lives. I know they are difficult for me to take and enjoy, as I am very responsible and very driven in terms of how much work I am aware is always needing my attention and energy. Yet I also know that God's design for humanity and the creation includes a regular sabbath every seventh day. While I am pretty good about taking my day off each week, there needs to be regular special days of rest, reflection, meditation, in my schedule for me to be re-energized and for me to do more than just the regular work that is part of a pastor's schedule. More and more that work has become task oriented and less and less the work of one who reflects on life and seeks the deeper theological insights into life.

But today was a day to reclaim some of that ability. It was a day for me. It was a day for sharing with family and friends. It was a day for thinking about life and for blogging. Now if I can just claim a day like this sooner than a year from now when my birthday rolls around again. Then I will be making real progress on implementing a learning from my sabbatical!