Whenever I run into someone who knows that I am on sabbatical, they inevitably will say something like, “Hope you’re getting lots of rest!” And I’ll respond with something like, “Ha, that’s the plan!” But internally I am saying, “I actually still feel tired. Oh crap, am I doing this wrong? Am I screwing up a one in seven year chance to rest?!”
In my more sane moments, I remember that tiredness does not vanish overnight (or over the course of a little over two weeks). I also remember that I am still very much on the clock for one of the more demanding parts of my life: being a parent. Before I took off, I had a lot of people ask me where I was going to go for sabbatical which was always somewhat confusing because most of these people know that I have a wife and two sons. It’s not like I’m going to say to my wife who is a high school Spanish teacher and say, “Alright, I’m off. See you in a month and you guys have fun!” That would be a surefire way to turn a sabbatical into something more permanent.
It probably sounds like I’m complaining and that’s not my aim. A great deal of my time has been restful and I have been grateful for it. Halfway through, I am bumping into the limitations of what a sabbatical can truly be. In the romanticized version, everything just stops. I have been reading about and listening to some podcasts that talk about both sabbath and the monastic lifestyle. Frequently in the discussion of these ideas, the conversation comes back to the desert mothers and fathers: early Christians who went out to the wilderness to dedicate their life to prayer and meditation. And there is part of me that would love to take a stack of books and journals and retreat to a cabin for a month.
Yet life doesn’t work like that. In the last few weeks, I have gotten a sense of why Paul encouraged some Christians not to get married and have families. It was not just because Paul was probably a nightmare boyfriend (read his letters, you know he would have been a bit much to deal with as a date). It is because parenthood, marriage, and so many more things demand time and commitment that could be given exclusively to God. However, those time and commitments are not antithetical to following God. After all, Jesus taught that love of God and neighbor are linked so being a good neighbor, a loving spouse/parent/child/sibling/friend/whatever is time and commitment dedicated towards God.
But it can be exhausting. People are exhausting whether they are family, neighbors, or random people on the street. You cannot escape them because we’re all just living here on this rock. So the question as I head into this latter part of the sabbatical is: How does one rest and how does one recharge their soul when their two feet are firmly planted in the real world?
I am actually going to spend a few days in spiritual retreat at a monastery and am very much looking forward to it. Yet I also am getting a better grasp on ways to carve out renewal space in the real world. Some of this is stuff I already knew like the vitality of connecting with God daily; not just through a quickly muttered prayer before a meal, but taking some time for silence, prayer, reading scripture/devotionals, and reflecting on the insights therein (or writing out arguments about how you do not like or understand this passage at all). God is Creator and Sustainer and to not go to that well each day is a recipe for disaster. Of course, if you work in some sort of religious setting it can be easy to believe that you are going to that well all day every day because it’s all related to God. But sacred work and sacred personal are still two different things.
The other thing is to remember what grounds you and making sure you do not neglect those things. Reading, writing, and running are the three primary activities that make me Chris. They help me learn about and reflect on the world, God, and my experiences. They are also the first three things that disappear from my regular practices the moment that I get busy. And when I don’t do those things, I feel adrift. Yet they are often laid aside because there are more “important” tasks to do. These past two weeks have already reminded me that the cost of neglecting the essential for the important is pretty steep.
So…those are my ramblings at this halfway point. My hope and prayer is that you find ways to rest and renew your soul even as you are living in this sometimes exhausting real world.