Sabbatical Notes, Week 10: A Remembrance

Published on by Adam Thomas11 Comments

Last Sunday, June 23, 2019, my paternal grandmother Dorothy died. She had spent two weeks in the loving and tender care of Hospice following a massive stroke. She was 93-years-old, which was, truth be told, a bit on the young side for her long-lived family. I was in the Holy Land during most of her time in Hospice, and thanks to the wonder of the internet, a FaceTime call put me in the room with her from halfway across the world. My father said that she visibly brightened when she heard my voice, though by that point she could not talk. She could barely squeeze a hand. I lit a candle for her in the “upper room” in the Old City, a peaceful place that beckoned prayer. The tears I shed for her watered the dusty ground of Jerusalem. Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 10: A Remembrance” →

Sabbatical Notes, Week 9: Pictures of Pilgrimage

Published on by Adam Thomas4 Comments

Week Nine of Sabbatical notes finds me really, really jet-lagged. Like can’t form full sentences jet-lagged. So instead of writing a piece for this week, I put together a slideshow of some of my pictures from the nine-day pilgrimage, accompanied by some rambling voiceover. Enjoy!

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Sabbatical Notes, Week 8: The Kokh Tomb

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

The events of my pilgrimage to the Holy Land are still too near for me to write about with any kind of perspective, so today I thought I’d offer you a short example of the recontextualization of Jesus’ story that I have learned from walking the land where Jesus walked. Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 8: The Kokh Tomb” →

Sabbatical Notes, Week 7: Eleven Years of WheretheWind.com

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

At the beginning of June eleven years ago, I was sitting in the guest bedroom at my parents house. Graduation from seminary was a few weeks in the past, and ordination to the priesthood was a week in the future. I was existing in an in-between space for those few weeks. The end of my formal academic life was giving way to the start of my professional life. As you can see from the words below, I was a bit at loose ends. On the advice of my seminary thesis reader (and all around awesome person) Brian McLaren, I started WheretheWind.com. Eleven years later, the site is still going strong as a place for my sermons and other musings.

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Sabbatical Notes, Week 6: Fantasy Bias

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Note: This week’s essay is a sample of what I’m working on during my sabbatical – a series of pieces in which I am interrogating my own past and looking for the societal underpinnings of my unconscious biases, especially in the realm of racism and white supremacy.

I have always loved fantasy and science fiction. Star Trek: The Next Generation is still, and probably always will be, my favorite TV show. As a young child, I watched Return of the Jedi until I wore out the VHS. In sixth grade I cut my long-form fantasy teeth on the Redwall series by Brian Jacques and The Hobbit. It took me three tries to get through The Lord of the Rings, but I finally did it in ninth grade, and then I read it every year for a decade. My senior year of high school, I read 35 Star Wars novels. Frank Herbert’s Dune blew my mind somewhere in there, but I can’t remember exactly when.

So it’s no secret I am a proud member of many fandoms: LOTR, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, the MCU, the whole Whedonverse (especially Buffy and Firefly). Engagement with some of these creative properties has shaped me from childhood. I learned the meaning of true friendship from Frodo and Sam. I learned the value of leadership with integrity from Captain Jean-Luc Picard. (And I learned the best way to sit down in a chair from Commander Riker.)

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Sabbatical Notes, Week 5: Perspective

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

Ever since coming home from the Peace and Justice Pilgrimage to Alabama I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the concept of perspective. Whose stories have I added to my own to widen my perspective of the world? What sources do I trust to provide me with information to deepen my awareness? How often do I encounter points of view that differ from mine and allow them to challenge and expand me?

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Sabbatical Notes, Week 4: Grief in Avengers:Endgame

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This post contains spoilers for Avengers:Endgame.

When I left the theater on opening day of Avengers:Endgame, all I could think about was the honest portrayals of grief that move the bulk of the first act of the film. In my role as a pastor, I walk with a lot of people as they grieve the death of loved ones. And this brilliant movie shows on the big screen what I’ve learned over the last eleven years:

Everyone grieves differently.

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Sabbatical Notes, Week 3: The National Memorial for Peace and Justice

Published on by Adam Thomas3 Comments

Last week I wrote a brief summary of my initial reactions to the pilgrimage I took with other local clergy to Montgomery, Tuskegee, and Birmingham, Alabama. You can read that essay here. Today, I would like to dwell on the centerpiece of the pilgrimage, the year-old National Memorial for Peace and Justice (sometimes called the Lynching Memorial).

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Sabbatical Notes, Week 2: Peace and Justice Pilgrimage

Published on by Adam Thomas5 Comments

Last week, I took a trip to Alabama with fellow clergy from New London and colleagues from the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. For three days we made a pilgrimage to sites, memorials, and museums important to the legacy of Civil Rights. What follows are my initial impressions of the trip in brief. I am still (and will be for a long time) processing and integrating my encounters with historic and current injustice in this country, and I will be revisiting my experience as I write more during this sabbatical time. Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 2: Peace and Justice Pilgrimage” →

Sabbatical Notes, Week 1: The Millennium Falcon

Published on by Adam Thomas6 Comments

I spent the first week of my sabbatical in my basement building the largest set LEGO has ever released to the public. The 7,541 piece Millennium Falcon was a joy to build. The combination of intense focus needed to complete a set so complicated and the playfulness that comes with both LEGO and Star Wars (two of my favorite fandoms) helped me transition from my norm into the time of sabbatical. Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 1: The Millennium Falcon” →