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!