Sunday, October 27, 2013

Sabbatical Ending: Lingering Gifts


My sabbatical co-workers
October 27 2013

My sabbatical is over in five days. 
I have sensed the boat coming closer for a week or so now, can make out the shapes of people in it, and feel the growing excitement and nervousness of impending reunion. Last week I had a spectacular dream of returning that contained a lot of fanciful impossibilities but a very real sense of love and pride for my people, and I’ve felt the glow of that dream cling to me ever sense. 
I miss them.
I am looking forward to being with them again.
I am eager to begin catching up, to seeing what has happened in them and discovering what has happened in me. 

I am trying very hard not to jump the gun, begin sermon planning, arrange meetings for the first week, reinstate my email or make a few preliminary calls.  
Friday is my first day. 
I will turn up at my office on Friday and I will begin again.  
Between now and then, I will enjoy each moment and take each day as the gift that it is.

Two weeks into this thing a wise person told me that I would figure out my sabbatical just as it was ending. He couldn’t have been more right. In the last few days I have noticed that I feel settled, connected, rested and invigorated, and crystal clear about some things I value highly (more on this later).  I feel awake in a deep sense, present in my own skin, observant and not just reactionary. 
I suspect I have months of unpacking and reflecting to begin understanding what this sabbatical is teaching me and doing in me.  But from this vantage I can already see three big movements.

The first month was a kind of frenetic energy, jigsaw puzzles and crazy dreams, spinning thoughts and constant movement, purging release and crashing fatigue. 

The second month I hunkered down and hid, finding myself suddenly aggressively resting and actively withdrawing in an unexpected mental shutdown, a vacuum of energy, both diminished capacity and deep calm.  It felt hard to string together sentences.

This last month has been defined by spontaneity, generosity, presence, and imagination.  I have felt both light and playful, and connected and settled. Calmer. Focused. Present.  I have been able to think about my thinking, have feelings about my emotions, witness my own being as I act.  I've reacted simultaneously with detached perspective and a profound sense of participation in my own life.
I have been gentler with myself than I have been in years.
Less pressure, more space. Less criticism, more grace.
I have had room to meet people where they are, to respond in the moment to what comes up.
I’ve planned less and participated more.

I've made better friends with Time. Instead of tugging and manipulating it, fighting it and resenting it, I've eased alongside it, submitting to its flow. I've practiced doing less. Far less. And I feel less defensive and more curious, less rushed and more available to delight in each day, not one of which has turned out like I thought it would when I awoke that morning.
I feel grateful.

For three months I have had almost no contact at all with my congregation, and stepped out of my presbytery role completely.  I haven’t seen emails or heard announcements, haven’t been privy to gossip or pulled in to prayer needs.  
I have truly been away.  Being held by God as I have trusted God is holding them.  
I’ve read and rested, tried my hand at pottery and mosaic, traveled and adventured, hung out with my kids and husband in fascinating places and nowhere at all, played with my new puppy and walked with my old dog.  
I’ve had amazing conversations, made new friends, and been absolutely alone.  
I've faced uncomfortable self-awareness, and the comfortable kind too.  
My children commandeered my laptop (for Minecraft and Club Penguin) and I’ve hardly touched it for three solid months.  Before sabbatical I don’t think I'd ever gone more than three hours.

Return will be a bit of a shock for all of us.
But I want to reenter ordinary time with vulnerable strength, open to whatever comes up, knowing God will meet me there as God has met me here.

At the end of Sabbath time, in the Jewish tradition, a bowl of spices is passed from person to person, the fragrance inhaled deeply and the question reflected upon, What do I wish to take with me from this Sabbath rest into the rest of my week?  What gifts of Sabbath will sustain me as I step out of this sacred time into ordinary time?
This week I will breathe in deeply.  And I will meditate on the gifts of this sabbatical.
Space.
Gentleness.
Hospitality.
Groundedness.
Curiousity.
Compassion.
Roominess and Boundaries. 
Imagination.
Mindfulness.
Clarity.
Grace.
These are some gifts I take with me; these are some blessings that sustain me.
O Lord, my God, thank you, thank you, thank you. For all, all, all. 

Sabbatical Middle: reflections on a life on Shuffle


September 10, 2013

My friend Jodi gave me a couple of cd’s a few months ago.  She is what I think of as “a real music person,” and her husband is an actual musician.  Recently, in my presence, she played a song I liked, and when I commented on it, she protested that it should have been familiar, because it was on the cd she had given me a few months ago.  I responded, “Oh! I just downloaded them into my iTunes and I play everything on shuffle.  I guess I haven’t gotten to that song yet. “ 
She threw her body back as though she’d been slapped, and shook her head vehemently.  “NO, NO, NO Kara! That is NOT how cds are supposed to be listened to!  It’s a whole experience!  You have to listen to the whole thing!”

My coffee pot has a pause setting, that means if you are not patient enough to wait for the whole pot to brew, you can just remove it midstream and fill your cup, letting it resume after you’re sipping away.  “NO!” my coffee-trained, brewing guru brother-in-law says. “It’s a whole batch! You have to let it finish brewing before you drink it!”

I’ve always taken secret pride in my incredible multi-tasking abilities.  I can juggle, baby. If there was a juggling contest, and instead of balls or pins it was things like appointments, emails, projects, relationships, menus and errands, I would be a true contender.  I get props for this too; it’s an ego stroke when people whistle with admiration and say things like, “Wow! You sure juggle A LOT!”

Only, now that I am pausing, now that I have far less to juggle, I’m dropping things.  I’m stumbling a little.  And it’s dawning on me that a part of me has atrophied.  That part that sits still.  Turns out, I have almost no patience.  

When you have 800 songs on shuffle, your odds of hearing any one song decrease considerably, and the chance of hearing something you’ve never heard before – that is slim indeed.  Not to mention the relationship between songs that you miss when you throw everything into the same big pot and hit the shuffle button.  
When I play music on shuffle it seems like I am hearing everything, but maybe I’m really not listening to very much at all.
  
And then the thought occurs to me, maybe I juggle everything so well because I am not so good at balance.  It’s easier to stay in perpetual motion than to stop and listen to a whole entire cd from beginning to end, or wait for the coffee pot to finish before pouring a cup.  
Maybe I’ve gotten good at appearing balanced, and really I’m just flailing around.  Perhaps I can “balance” lots of things in the air at once if I keep moving, but take one or two things out of rotation and suddenly I drop things and stumble a little.

So I wonder, what happens if I am empty-handed? What happens if I hold still?   
I am flexible, baby. I like to think I’m good at yoga, but I’m really kind of terrible at yoga. I can get into some pretty great sitting poses that put my arms or legs into surprising places, but I can do almost nothing that requires balance. 
 Can I raise my leg into tree pose and close my eyes and hold it?  
No.  I really can’t.  Not even with my eyes open. 
What good is flexibility, ultimately, if standing still is hard?   
What good is juggling lots of things if you can’t hold onto a few?

I want to hear new things.  
And I want to notice the relationship between things.  
I want to stop and be present to the music.  
To breathe into the stillness and hold it.  
I want to stick with one thing for a spell instead of wildly juggling to stay upright, bouncing impatiently around genres, taking whatever comes next on a shuffle kind of life.  
I’m craving balance.

But balance takes patience, and patience takes time, and time is something I like to act like is in short supply.  
Except it’s not.  
It’s what holds us always, it’s how I move through my day whether that day happens to be packed and breathless or empty and open.  
And what do you know, right now, Time is staring me in the face with questioning eyes.  
Hello sabbatical.

I’m naturally flexible, I didn’t work to become that.  
What does not come naturally is balance.  
Maybe this is my time to practice.  
This is my time to stop shuffling and juggling and learn to balance while holding still.  To exercise patience.  This is my chance to greet time differently.
I think I’ll start with those cds.
And that cup of perfectly prepared coffee.


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