Sab⋅bat⋅i⋅cal: Any Extended Period of Leave from One's Customary Work

My Sabbatical Parameters

My sabbatical was seven weeks in length beginning the last week of September 2007.  I spent my first week in Louisville taking an Alban Institute class entitled “Balancing Your Ministry, Renewing Your Life.”  The next four weeks were spent in a borrowed RV trailer parked in a secluded place where I could read, pray, and write without interruption.  My wife joined me on the weekends, and I traveled to Olivet Nazarene University for their 2 day Fall Holiness Lectures.  Otherwise I celebrated silence and solitude.  During week six I traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to visit my son and his wife at the University of Alabama and then proceeded to a rented cabin in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee where I finished my time with hikes, reading, and reflection.

Through the entire seven weeks the Sabbatical Team in my local congregation did a marvelous job of caring for all the needs of the church and guarding my privacy.  Their work made it possible to sanctify the space and time necessary for a meaningful sabbatical.  I owe to them a huge debt of gratitude.

My hope as I began my sabbatical journey was to rediscover Sabbath, refocus my vocation, and renew my life.  A clergy sabbatical differs from an academic sabbatical in that academic sabbaticals are usually about projects while clergy sabbaticals are more about personal renewal.  This does not mean clergy sabbaticals do not include projects but the focus is not creating something for publication.  Clergy sabbaticals are more about soul-care, honest reflection, and re-focus.

I view my sabbatical experience as a success.  I had no supernatural extraordinary encounter with my Maker: rather, it was in a new found quietness in my soul that I became more aware of his presence around me at all times.  I became aware of being a guest in God’s garden.  I do not live in Eden, but I do live in God’s garden and do so according to God’s time.  Such awareness is life altering and vocation adjusting.
 
The Enemy of Sabbatical

The true enemy of both Sabbath and sabbatical can be summed up in one word: production.  In our Western culture we are usually defined by what we produce.  Some of the blame for this approach can be traced to the attitudes that were a part of the spirit that formed our nation.  The American Revolution brought to us the many blessings and benefits of liberty.  With the benefits of liberty came an unbounded hope well-expressed in the idealistic belief that “any boy (or girl) can grow up to be president.”  Practically, this was never actually true but it expresses a core value of a new experiment in democracy.  With this belief came the consequence that value was no longer ascribed to individuals based on their birth, but rather on the level to which they could rise based on their achievements.  It was a step forward for liberty in government but a step backward in considering the individual value of all human beings created in the image of God.  Personal value was something to be earned by hard work and not something freely bestowed.

With this concept entrenched in my soul I found myself planning a sabbatical filled with activities designed to produce a sabbatical I could justify.  Yet the product of worship is worship and is hard to justify in terms of tangible products.  I also struggled with guilt over disengaging from the congregation of my vocation.  Without the help of my Sabbatical Team I would have never been able to find the quiet my soul needed for renewal.  I would have wasted time trying to earn value to justify my time investment in a sabbatical.

A cornerstone of Sabbath is embracing my ascribed value.  I am loved because I am a child of God created in his image.  I embrace my vocation because I am loved and not in order to be loved.  This simple and obvious truth is much easier to state than to embrace in my actual life.  I needed to relearn this truth.  I have reclaimed 1 John 3:1 “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God...”   Sabbatical renewal places a premium on embracing our being fully and authentically human (which God described as good) over desperate endless doing to justify our existence.

Lessons Learned

My mindset during my sabbatical was one of seeking to be aware of the Holy Presence of God in life.  This mindset was very helpful as I sought to hear God’s word to me.  The following excerpt is from my Sabbatical Journal and reveals the kind of introspection that dominated my mind during my journey of renewal.

“Two sets of questions spring to mind as I think about this sabbatical experience.  First, at what times, in what activities, and in what places have I been most aware of God’s presence?  In what aspects of this time have I been encouraged and delighted in my salvation and call?  Second, at what times, in what activities, and in what places have I been least aware of God’s presence?  In what aspects of this time have I been most alone, most de-energized, and most uncertain in my quest for renewal of my life and calling?”

Of the many things I learned during my sabbatical, two lessons stand out and have followed me into my life and vocation.  The first concerns the issue of time.  There is not space here to fully discuss how deeply I was touched by Abraham Heschel’s discussion of sanctified space and sanctified time.  (A wonderful treatment of sanctified space and time can be found in Heschel’s book The Sabbath.)  Both are necessary, but only with the sanctification of time can one fully experience Sabbath.  Time is the element of creation that is most beyond human control and is the gift that is most divine.  Too much of my existence personally and vocationally has been about controlling sanctified space and far too little of my existence has been about sanctifying time.  The cause of this has too often been my desire to justify my existence by control and production.  It requires much more faith to wait on God by relinquishing control and trusting him with my soul.  In one of my journal entries I wrote, “My purpose, my life, is not about possessing anything, not a church, or a position, not even salvation, but rather it is about following Christ and in so doing I have found salvation, vocation, and calling.  This is where I stand.”    This simple, perhaps obvious truth sums up my journey to renewal.  It was for me a fresh rediscovery of grace.

Second, there were the insights gained from silence before God.  Nearly every night I was at my camp site I would build a fire and sit quietly reading until the light faded.  I would remain in the stillness until the fire burned out, and I would listen for God.  At first I was fearful of the silence; I was afraid that God would not speak.  After I read Ruth Barton’s encouragement to go to the silence without demanding that God speak, I began to see a change in me.   I became much more aware of the Creator God who is my Redeemer.  In the quiet I became aware of being in God’s garden with Him ever near.  It is amazing what can happen when one becomes still and listens long enough to hear.  God is with His creation.  God is for me.  I have value because I am created.  God is always speaking.  He is always calling me to experience His grace.

Final Thoughts

There is far more value in an honest retreat to Sabbath than can ever be measured by conventional means.  The most difficult aspect of true Sabbath, and also of effective sabbatical, is disengaging from the need to produce something to justify value.  We are not self-sufficient deities.  We are human creatures dependent on our Creator.

Times of Sabbatical are not optional actions of leisure for the healthy soul but mandatory times of authentic Sabbath.  Only in Sabbath is God really our God.  The only real rest is Sabbath-rest in the arms of God.  Sabbath is perhaps the most authentic act of worship of which human beings are capable.  God did create labor (work can be a blessing), but He also sanctified the seventh day, and the seventh year, and the year of Jubilee.  He called His people to take extended time to know His rest.  Anything that interferes with such rest is surely the antithesis of Sabbath and of worship.

The work of planning a sabbatical is worth all the effort.  There is no substitute for unhindered and unhurried time spent pursuing the God of our Creation and Redemption.  I look forward to my next opportunity for sabbatical.