We spent a week in Maine. A pastor on my district invited us to stay at his family's lakeside cabin for a week. It was wonderful. It was beautiful and I think it was probably the best week of my sabbatical thus far.
We arrived on Sunday evening and left on Friday morning. For one week we were planted. We did go into town once for food, but other than that, we did nothing. Went no where. We made no plans and scheduled no outings. We just stayed there. We began our mornings with reading and ending our evenings reading. Other than reading there was the lake, and there were canoes and kayaks. We all took turns in the two kayaks but Stella enjoyed it the most. She went out in the kayak at least once a day, sometimes more. We spent hours during the day reading, as well as enjoying the water.
There is really not much I can say about the week. This was the week we really did relax. I read five books. All fiction. I was planning on bringing at least three "work" books. But when Mike saw me putting them into my bag, he advised me to leave work behind. All Summer, no matter where I have gone, I have brought at least one fiction and one work book with me and often times several of the later. I think he was mainly just asking me to pare down the amount of books I as toting around but I think the idea of really leaving all work behind, which is what we did, was really for the best.
This was the first week I really relaxed. I know it sounds odd, here I was halfway through my sabbatical (the Sunday we left marked the halfway point - I was six Sundays in and had six left) and had not really let myself go and completely relax.
In many ways I have been worried if I was doing sabbatical "right"? Was I doing what I was suppose to do? Was I doing the things that would benefit my congregation? This is suppose to benefit them as well as myself. I want to do right by them. I have taken time each week to read books that intended to help me become a better pastor, a better leader. I have worked to be intentional with my time, my energy, my activities. But what I learned last week was that I have not been relaxing, truly relaxing.
Last week I caught a glimpse of what that fells like, what that looks like. I am sure that truly relaxing looks different for different people, but for me it meant sitting in a hammock and reading a book, watching the ripples on the lake, watching the sun as it came up over the trees and tracing as it made it ways toward setting. It meant learning how to operate a kayak and watching my daughter figure out that is really good with this same new skill. It meant watching my girls play in the lake and joining them at time. It meant cooking when we became hungry and going to be when I was too tired to read by lamp light anymore and then waking up when the sun woke me up to do all that over again. No where to go, no plans, no agendas, nothing that needed to be done, outside that which provided for our nourishment and our immediate needs.
Somewhere there on that hammock, along a lake, I found relaxation. All the stress was gone. All the worry, all the press of day to day life, were gone. And I learned to just be where I was, to enjoy the sun on my face, the story in my book and this particular moment in my girls' lives. And for one week I was there for it all. I was not thinking about what I needed to do next. I was not making plans for the next thing. I just let all that be back in Boston and I stayed there by the lake and let the week be what it was. And it was great. Nothing exciting to write about. No great revelation, no clear picture of the future. I just learned to be there, at that moment and to enjoy it for all that it was worth.
My great accomplishment of last week was, after six week of experiencing several different levels of rest, I learned what it looked, felt like; what it was for me to really and truly relax.
We arrived on Sunday evening and left on Friday morning. For one week we were planted. We did go into town once for food, but other than that, we did nothing. Went no where. We made no plans and scheduled no outings. We just stayed there. We began our mornings with reading and ending our evenings reading. Other than reading there was the lake, and there were canoes and kayaks. We all took turns in the two kayaks but Stella enjoyed it the most. She went out in the kayak at least once a day, sometimes more. We spent hours during the day reading, as well as enjoying the water.
There is really not much I can say about the week. This was the week we really did relax. I read five books. All fiction. I was planning on bringing at least three "work" books. But when Mike saw me putting them into my bag, he advised me to leave work behind. All Summer, no matter where I have gone, I have brought at least one fiction and one work book with me and often times several of the later. I think he was mainly just asking me to pare down the amount of books I as toting around but I think the idea of really leaving all work behind, which is what we did, was really for the best.
This was the first week I really relaxed. I know it sounds odd, here I was halfway through my sabbatical (the Sunday we left marked the halfway point - I was six Sundays in and had six left) and had not really let myself go and completely relax.
In many ways I have been worried if I was doing sabbatical "right"? Was I doing what I was suppose to do? Was I doing the things that would benefit my congregation? This is suppose to benefit them as well as myself. I want to do right by them. I have taken time each week to read books that intended to help me become a better pastor, a better leader. I have worked to be intentional with my time, my energy, my activities. But what I learned last week was that I have not been relaxing, truly relaxing.
Last week I caught a glimpse of what that fells like, what that looks like. I am sure that truly relaxing looks different for different people, but for me it meant sitting in a hammock and reading a book, watching the ripples on the lake, watching the sun as it came up over the trees and tracing as it made it ways toward setting. It meant learning how to operate a kayak and watching my daughter figure out that is really good with this same new skill. It meant watching my girls play in the lake and joining them at time. It meant cooking when we became hungry and going to be when I was too tired to read by lamp light anymore and then waking up when the sun woke me up to do all that over again. No where to go, no plans, no agendas, nothing that needed to be done, outside that which provided for our nourishment and our immediate needs.Somewhere there on that hammock, along a lake, I found relaxation. All the stress was gone. All the worry, all the press of day to day life, were gone. And I learned to just be where I was, to enjoy the sun on my face, the story in my book and this particular moment in my girls' lives. And for one week I was there for it all. I was not thinking about what I needed to do next. I was not making plans for the next thing. I just let all that be back in Boston and I stayed there by the lake and let the week be what it was. And it was great. Nothing exciting to write about. No great revelation, no clear picture of the future. I just learned to be there, at that moment and to enjoy it for all that it was worth.
My great accomplishment of last week was, after six week of experiencing several different levels of rest, I learned what it looked, felt like; what it was for me to really and truly relax.
No comments:
Post a Comment