Yesterday was my final day of sabbatical time: twelve long weeks set apart from (at least some of) my normal rhythms. I spent a good chunk of it in my basement. The parts I didn’t spend in my basement I spent in Alabama, North Carolina, and Israel-Palestine. I also visited my spiritual director three times, and her insights were (as always) helpful, inspired, compassionate, and kind.
I went into this sabbatical time with four written goals and one unwritten goal. The unwritten one was not to be so bound to my four written goals that I didn’t move where the Holy Spirit was leading me. The four written goals were:
- Integrate through personal writing much of the reading I’ve done about racism and white supremacy.
- Prepare myself for pilgrimage to the Holy Land and make the most out of that opportunity.
- Rest, rejuvenate, and step back to see the proverbial forest instead of the trees.
- Begin habituating a spiritual practice of silence and Christian meditation into my daily life.
Because of the unwritten goal, I am striving not to quantify “how well” I achieved the four written ones. Rather, here are a few observations about each one. Continue reading “Sabbatical Notes, Week 12: The End”