The Power of Memory: Remembering & Reliving the Sabbatical

While on a roll, I want to post something other than a complaint-based rant. There have actually been a number of experiences and reflections I have enjoyed this month, related to my Sabbatical of last year, that I just never found the time to sit down and write about on my blog. (That is part of the source of the complaint-based rant.) So, today, my last day of vacation in Chicago, I want to share some reflections on remembering the Sabbatical this month.

When July 1 rolled around this year I discovered a strong sense of melancholy also arrived with the turning of the calendar page. I began remembering exactly where I was and what I was doing one year ago: Paul and I had just arrived in Minnesota; Paul and I were entering the Boundary Waters via canoe; there were no fire-works on the Fourth of July last year as Paul and I were deep in the north woods, far away from civilization. That experience has continued almost all month. In fact, other people have joined me in remembering. My daughter-in-law, Erika, commented last night that I have set a precedent now, two years in a row in Chicago visiting them in July. There are now expectations that I will return to Chicago again in July now that the precedent is set! It was also noted shortly after we arrived this year that last year at this time we had actually just left Chicago to head to St. Louis. I was also very aware on my father's birthday this year, July 19, that last year we were in St. Louis just a few days before his birthday to celebrate with him and this year he is no longer with us, having died in February.

There was another incident earlier in the month that evoked a slightly different take on this nostalgia. Early in July one Saturday morning, in fact I believe it was the Fourth, I made my morning walk to the bay and upon arrival was greeted by several folks embarking from the landing area for a day of fishing from kayaks. As I stood on the landing watching two of the kayaks paddle off toward the bay into the rising sun it seemed to me they were in the wrong place. They should have been paddling away from the Sawbill Landing heading out into a wilderness adventure in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota!

There is no memory I can recall of ever having experienced this same sort of nostalgia so strongly as I am experiencing right now around my Sabbatical experience of one year ago. Will this be prominent in my thoughts and feelings for the next three months? Will I in essence relive the Sabbatical in some form this year? And what about in the years to come? Will I have some of these same thoughts and feelings every year during July, August, September and October? Vivid memories are a common part of my life. But never do I recall this strong recollection of where I was and what I was doing at the same time one year ago as I am experiencing with the Sabbatical. Perhaps this is another indication of what a once-in-a-lifetime, life-changing, foundational experience was my adventure of last year.

(The pictures are from the time in the Boundary Waters last year. Just a chance to share more of my thousands of photos with you and to share some of my nostalgia.)

The Difficulty of Learning the Sabbath Tango

Here it is July 22, 2009, and I am making my first post for the month! Last year, even with six days in the wilderness of Northern Minnesota, I already had several posts by this time. In fact, by the 22nd of July, 2008, I was on my way back to Miami after the first three weeks of my Sabbatical feeling very refreshed, relaxed and ready for my South American adventure! This July 22 I am finishing up my one-week vacation, enjoying a final full day in Chicago, and wondering where the vacation time went to so fast?!? One-week of vacation is not nearly enough time off to accomplish what a vacation needs to do in terms of restoring the body, mind and soul. For example, I am just now getting over a cold that is trying to become bronchitis. This hit me two days ago, about half-way through the vacation. It took my body 4 days to realize it was on vacation before it could consider whether it wanted to get sick for vacation or not! It took my mind a good three days to realize it was on vacation before it began to shift into relaxation mode. It has taken my spirit about six days to realize it was on vacation to where I was ready to begin engaging in spirit-renewing activities, such as writing in my journal, or my blog, and reading a book just for fun! Of course, I return to Miami tomorrow and back to work on Friday, so body will have had about 4 days of vacation, 2-3 of them fighting illness; my mind will have had about 5 days of vacation, also 2-3 days of that clouded by my body's illness; and my spirit will have had about 2 days of vacation.

And that is how most of my time off this year is shaping up. We had this week in Chicago to celebrate my wife Dianne's birthday (and we had a wonderful time with our family in Chicago, Jim, Erika, and granddaughters, Madeleine & Shelby.) I will next take a 4.5 days early in August to drive with my daughter,Rebekah, to Pennsylvania to help her get settled in her apartment for Law School which begins later that month. Then, after returning to Miami, a week later I will fly with my son, Paul, out to Salt Lake City, Utah, to help him get settled in Westminster College for his freshman year. I will take about 8 days to make that trip, and the last two days will probably be alone time for me as it appears that the orientation schedule does not include parents on Monday or Tuesday. (That is fine with me, at least I will get a little bit of solo vacation out of the trip!) Then Dianne and I are planning to take a 10 day trip this September, probably to California. Perhaps that will be a long enough experience to bring full refreshment and renewal to my body, mind & soul?!

I am not really complaining, as much as I am bemoaning several realities. First, the fact that we expect too much out of too little far too often in our society. We expect a one or two week vacation to make up for the other 50 highly stressful, highly taxing, highly exhausting weeks we spend at work, at volunteer activities, at household chores, etc. We expect one-hour a week on Sunday mornings to renew our relationship with God and to restore our spiritual health to a balanced place to take us through the week. Our bodies, minds and spirits need regular renewal time and periodic intense, extended renewal time, for good health. It is the way we were created. Besides all the medical studies highlighting this truth, God's plan as detailed in the Bible also teaches us the same thing. God established the Sabbath at the very beginning creating the world: after six days of work, God rested. God knew when to take a break and God taught us that we need to do the same thing. Yet how infrequently do we really take a weekly Sabbath? If we are lucky enough any more to not work on Saturday or Sunday we almost always fill both days with chores and other high levels of activity. How often do we stop to ask ourselves if something we are planning to do will be renewing to our body, mind, spirit, or family relationships?

The other reality I find very sad is that there is so little acknowledgement of the importance of family and family relationships in the structure of our employment practices. I remember when the Family Leave Act was passed by Congress back in the '90's that mandated employers to allow mothers and fathers time off work for the birth or adoption of a baby. It was a major battle to get this law passed! Most employers do not allow for separate sick-leave days for caring for a family member: an employee must use their sick leave, which in most cases is pretty minimal for the year, especially when it must be divided between the employee and one or more dependents. Most employers do not allow for time off for attending to other family care situations: like attending graduations, taking children off to college, etc. To do such a parent must use vacation time. Now I realize there might always be people who would abuse some benefit, but I also realize that we as a society are extremely driven to succeed at all costs, especially when it comes to turning a profit. We have very little humane and compassionate practices in our economic, business, and social relationships. And the church gets sucked right into the same attitudes and practices. This is very sad.

But I am thankful for a caring and understanding congregation of people who, while they expect a lot out of their pastor and like for him to be available 24/7/365, still realize he is a human being who needs time away for renewal and refreshment. They are fairly flexible and as long as I am there at the critical moments, for the most part they allow me space and encourage me to find Sabbath Time so that I can be healthy, whole, and a better person and pastor. Finding such is part of the difficult dance known as Sabbath Tango. As I learned in Argentina one does not pick-up the Tango, and definitely not master it, in just a few lessons. It takes years of practice. Even so with the Sabbath Tango.

(The pictures include: A brown bear cooling himself at the Brookfield Zoo, he definitely seems to have a better handle on the Sabbath Tango than I do; Dianne & I with our children preparing to go out to celebrate her birthday with a fabulous dinner; a view of the Chicago River from the boat tour we enjoyed; a photo of me & Dianne and taking a photo of ourselves and the Chicago skyline in the Cloud Gate in Millenium Park; and a photo of Dianne, Rebekah & Paul at the sign for Millenium Park.)

Final Sabbatical Event a Celebration

Argentina has been making a big splash in the news recently, but it was not Governor Sanford's mistress or the parliamentary elections which captured our focus at Christ Congregational Church this past weekend. No, we gathered as a congregation to celebrate the marvelous gift of renewal pastor & congregation experienced this past year with an Argentinean dinner, surrounded by the sights and sounds of Argentina in our Fellowship Hall. With some photo posters decorating the walls bringing Buenos Aires, Bariloche, and Machu Picchu to life, about 40 members and friends of the church gathered to enjoy las comidas de Argentina, prepared by Tango's Restaurant & Bakery. Typical fare such as Ensalada Rusa (potato salad w/peas & carrots), Chorizos, Entrana ala Verdeo (grilled churrasco steak with a Chardonnay scallion sauce), Gnocchi Alfredo and a variety of mini desserts, was enjoyed by all with the Tango music of Carlos Gardel serenading in the background.

After dinner I shared some final reflections on the Sabbatical experience for myself as Pastor, with a montage of photos from Argentina and Peru projected in the background. Those reflections were drawn primarily from this blog, so I will just summarize them in this post. I began by reminiscing on the dreamlike quality of the adventure of twelve weeks in South America, seventeen weeks of not working, learning Spanish as an alien in distant lands. The primary blessing I would identify of the Sabbatical was the time for reflection on my life, on the world, on my work life and on my call to ministry. That has especially become clear to me eight months removed from the experience. It is so difficult to claim time in my regular schedule for simply sitting and reflecting on life and the world. For a pastor that is especially sad. Historically, reflection time has been a major element of the pastoral role and a significant part of why we are given the privilege of financial support by a community for this ministry. Without ample reflection time it becomes increasingly difficult to adequately feed the people of the community through sermons and writings.

In addition to ample time for reflection, I summarized my learning on the sabbatical in five areas:

1. The basics of the Spanish language. Difficult as it has been to maintain the level of fluency I developed in Argentina, I did learn the basic structure of the language, the basic verb tenses and conjugations, and a basic vocabulary on which I can build. I know I will continue to grow in my ability to use Spanish and I see evidence of it, albeit baby steps, every day.

2. How much I love to travel and how much it nurtures my soul. I have already reflected on this in another part of the blog, but it is clear to me that I need to continue to seek ways and means to incorporate significant travel experiences into my life. It is one of the most renewing experiences possible for me.

3. A renewed sense of what is truly important for me. First: my family. Second: Paying attention to and nurturing quality relationships with people. That includes my family, but also those to whom I minister as pastor. Third: Nurturing time for reflection about life. Fourth: Importance of developing outside interests beyond my work as pastor.

4. The importance of maintaining a flexible and creative approach to life, relationships, and spirituality. When we are rigid in our desire to seek control of life, we are less able to go with the flow. As a result, life becomes more of a burden and less enjoyable. When we can adapt with some flexibility to whatever situations arise in our lives, then we can find the good, even in the bad, and we can continue to see the beauty and blessings in life all around us.

5. The importance of trusting myself and others to accomplish what needs to be done. We completed the Sabbatical Grant Application within three months time. I planned my time away within a year. I went away and the congregation did not fall apart. In fact, it thrived. I return from the Sabbatical with a new freedom to be Pastor in this place in a new way. I am taking clear steps to take on less responsibility, to trust others to assume more responsibility, to support, encourage, and assist them in that process. The result will be, I am sure, a stronger church community more completely living out its call to be the body of Christ, the people of God in this place. It will also lead to a healthier, more renewed, and better pastor, who will find the time for reflection and be better able to inspire and guide the people of God.

On Saturday, with the assistance of the Rev. Dr. John Manrodt from the Counseling Ministry of South Florida, about 22 people returned to spend time reflecting on what the sabbatical experience was like for them as a congregation. After some creative exercises to help stimulate that thinking and sharing, we spent some time looking toward the future and what it means for us as a church and pastor that we have had this experience. Some positive plans began to grow out of those discussions and everyone seemed to leave with excitement and a forward thinking approach to the future of Christ Congregational Church.

While this weekend will probably be the final planned event related to the Sabbatical, the experience of planning for, living the adventure, and re-engaging life and ministry afterwards, will continue to have an impact and influence for years to come. It was a marvelous gift. For me from the people of Christ Congregational Church in terms of their support and their allowing me the time to pursue. For all of us from the people of the Lily Foundation who made it possible financially with their generous Clergy Renewal Grant.

The adventure continues, though not in South America, but right here in Miami and I look forward to continuing to reflect upon Sabbath and sabbatical concerns, especially the dance between Sabbath time and regular time, the Sabbath Tango.

A Celebration 18 Years in the Making!

My son is graduating from High School tomorrow! Eighteen years ago when I held him in my arms at his birth this moment seemed an eternity away. Over the years there were even some periods in our struggles with him around his studies and his attentiveness to school where we wondered if he would actually make it to this moment. But despite all our worries and fears he has arrived and arrived in very good shape. He has matured, taking giant steps forward this past year, into a fascinating, creative, deep-thinking young man. He is finding his talents and calling in life (not that it is necessarily settled yet, but he does have a direction to his journey that he is walking with some intentionality) which he is embracing, even as he continues to remain open to exploring more areas of possible interest and creative expression. He is enrolled in the college of his choice, which also luckily chose him, and with a final summer of freedom before him, is actually quite ready, even anxious, to be finished with high school and ready to move on to the adventure that awaits him in college.

And so I am sitting in a hotel room in Melbourne, Florida, at midnight, having enjoyed an evening of celebration with my son, his mother and step-mother, his sister, one uncle, and sister's boyfriend and wondering how did I get here and where did the years go so quickly?!?! I don't really "feel" old, yet my daughter has been out of college for one year and is headed off to law school in August and my son is graduating high school and flying off to college out west this year as well. Eighteen years have literally flown by, when viewed from this end of the chronological spectrum. This is one powerful reason why sabbath time, time-off, and time to relish and reflect on life is so important to me. Because it all passes so quickly. Especially when one is caught up in the myriad duties of working, pastoring a church, living life. Yet, in spite of a recent sabbatical to help regain my focus on time-off and reflective time, I still struggle to incorporate into my schedule time to write, time to reflect, time to just be.

At the same time, as I do reflect on my life, it is very good. I am engaged in very meaningful ministry at both the church I pastor and through part-time, on-call chaplain work for VITAS Hospice. I live in a beautiful place, South Florida, with near ideal weather 90% of the year. I play golf once a week, walk several times a week, encounter a wide variety of wildlife (amazing since I live in an urban area). I am surrounded by very loving, accepting family and wonderfully supportive, even if at times a bit challenging, church members. My life is rich and for the most part enjoyable and meaningful. Perhaps I need to take a step-back from, a sabbath break from, my expectations about sabbath time and reflection time, and relish the time I have to enjoy the life with which I have been blessed? Perhaps my reflection time is quality enough if I find the moments to think about life and appreciate life, even if I don't write those reflections down anywhere? Perhaps my occasional posts on this blog, my sporadic entries in my journal, are satisfactory reflection times for the time being and when I need to engage in more frequent writings, I will find the time, I will make the time, God will bless me with the opportunity, through another sabbatical, another vacation, another period of intentionality?

But for right now, I am relishing and wallowing in the celebration of my son, my youngest child, graduating from High School! Way to go, Paul!!

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.

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!

Another type of mini-sabbatical

"We have lost the ability and time to reflect on our lives today." With these words Ted Runions opened the retreat for the Board of Directors of the Florida Conference United Church of Christ which I recently attended. Everything proceeds at such an accelerated pace, yet we have less time, because we are expected to do more than we used to do. He reminded us that a “retreat” is a gift of time to stop, reflect, and think about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how it is done. His opening comments reminded me of the purpose of a sabbatical. They also brought to mind how much I treasured and enjoyed the four-month gift of time to do just that in my own life. The longer I am back, the more I try to schedule and create such a time to reflect on my own life in the regular schedule of my days with increasing difficulty and frustration, the more I realize what a truly precious gift were those four months in 2008. Increasingly I feel like the crazy woodpecker who has taken to beating his head against the window in front of my desk. The bird must see its reflection and is either attacking this "other" bird which it feels is a threat, or is trying to make contact, but just keeps banging into this hard glass. I keep trying to find time in my daily routine to write in my journal, or write on my blog, or just sit and think. But it just does not happen. My days are filled with work duties, family duties, and when there appears to be time in the evening, I am often just too tired to focus beyond the television, or bed. I am very thankful that I keep finding small blocks of time, like my father's funeral weekend, or this Board of Director's Retreat weekend, to step away from my regular schedule. And I do some reflecting during those times. But it does not feel as if they are enough to deeply, richly feed my soul.

The Board of Directors' retreat was a sort of mini-sabbatical. Not only did it allow time for reflecting on the work of the Board and on my role with the Board, but the facilitator also helped us identify our Myers-Briggs Personality Types (I am an INFJ) toward the end of helping us clarify the personality of the Board of Directors and giving us some insight how this information can help in our work and functioning as a group. This personal information, however, also provided me an opportunity to engage in some personal reflection. I gained some new insight and recalled some old insight, into my personality type and I was able to reflect somewhat on why I am the way I am and revisit some understanding about how I function and what it most healthy for me. For instance, it was reinforced for me one more time, in one more way, that as an "I" (introvert) type, I draw my energy from time alone. Thus, it is vitally important for me to have quiet time to reflect, to be alone, in order to be re-energized. My daily solo walks are important. Time to write would be a very important positive exercise for me. I have been learning and claiming all these insights in many ways the past 8 months. This was one more confirmation about this self-knowledge. The trick is, as I initially stated, finding and claiming the time to commit to these activities.