And herein lies the problem. The pressure to be rested, fulfilled, spiritually enriched. The pressure to make the most of my sabbatical.
There are a few things I want to achieve during these three months. There are my sabbatical projects. The first (and primary) one is to explore a spirituality rooted in nature and its beauty. I live on the edge of Sheffield, only a millstone's throw from the breathtaking beauty that is the Peak. And we use it as a family - not as much as we should, but a little. We've walked there, camped there, driven through there as a more scenic route when visiting family, bouldered and scrambled there, picnicked there... The countryside is something I love, but it has never been, for me, a spiritual place. I find God at my desk, in my books, in conversations with others, in the day-to-day. Not in trees, fields, hills or dry-stone walls. So I'm going out to the Peak, on foot, by bike or with my bouldering mat; sometimes alone, sometimes with others. I'm going to see if God is there.
My wet-weather plan, however, is to recover my German. I used to be pretty good - half a lifetime ago, I did A-level German. I read some Germany secondary literature for my PhD thesis. But it's got increasingly rusty over the years, so I'm on a mission to brush it up, polish it and then use it. I hope to go to the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) meeting in Vienna in July, and find a little time to practice my (hopefully by then at least partially recovered) German in the restaurants and coffee houses of that amazing city.
And then there's the little matter of writing a section for the Methodist Church's new Local Preacher training course... It will be fantastic to have time to write, without having to fit it around the day job!
But in addition to the official projects, I'm looking forward to having time - time to do all the things which keep me sane, which I enjoy, and which give life a little extra vitality. Swimming and other exercise, reading, decorating my dolls' house, playing the piano and the drums, knitting... Things which have been increasingly squeezed out of my life in recent months, but which really need to be there.
And I'm looking forward to real sabbath. Rest. Not just time for a different kind of business, but actual rest. And if you're now spotting a bit of a flaw in my plans, so am I! This week has been great. I've spent time with the children, while they're still on holiday. We've watched films together, gone to Eureka! children's museum together, gone to the park together. We've even gone out into the Peak (Castleton, to be precise) together. I've managed to get in a bit of German time, in the evenings. I've been twice on my exercise bike and done some abs and pump exercises every day. I've read a bit, watched a bit of telly and done some overdue housework. But I've not done so well on the rest. I'm shattered!!
The gift of 3 months away from the usual aspects of my ministry is a gift to be treasured, but the danger is perhaps in trying to fit everything into that time. In feeling the pressure to fit in all the things I often wish I had more time for, so that I end up feeling more exhausted at the end than the start. Like the sort of holiday I always manage, where I charge round a foreign city for a week, guidebook in hand, desperate to see absolutely everything there is to see. Before going back to work for a rest.
Maybe my next sabbatical (for which I need to wait another 7 years, but no harm in planning ahead, right?) should be more Genesis-based. "On the seventh day, God rested from all the work that he had done." (Gen 2:2, CEB). Not, "God decided to spend more time with his family", and not "God relished the opportunity to explore aspects of divinity that normally got squeezed out by the pressures of creation." Just, "God rested". Because rest is a good and worthwhile end in itself. Real Shabbat isn't about having chance to do a different load of stuff. It's about stopping doing the stuff that's normally there. So maybe I need to shove the 'rest' part of my plans a little further up the agenda. If necessary, the dolls' house can wait.
"God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work of creation." Rest is holy. Sabbatical is rest.
I'm off for a snooze.......
