Setting Out On Sabbatical

My sabbatical has begun. As I’ve spoken to people about it, especially people outside of the church-y world, I’ve noticed that it is a word in need of definition. Either people haven’t heard of a sabbatical before, or maybe they remember their minister taking a year out to do some study, or something more akin to an academic sabbatical. Though I’d be excited by the prospect of study leave, I’ve been convinced that these next three months of sabbatical require a different approach. At its root, sabbatical (like sabbath) derives from the Hebrew shabbat, which means to stop. It is a ceasing from work in order to rest and delight, to re-root my true identity in God, and to resist a culture of overwork, frantic busyness and joyless anxiety. Reading over notes I took from Ruth Hayley Barton’s Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest, I was particularly struck by these lines:

‘Knowing that sabbatical is a gift from a loving God – and not merely a gift from one’s church or institution – makes quite a difference… Rather than feeling guilty or entitled, I was able to gratefully receive sabbatical as God’s care for me, a beloved child’

I have not struggled to recognise the immense privilege that it is to work for an organisation that has a generous sabbatical policy, and that has allowed me the freedom to design this time according to what I need. But I had, perhaps, been less alert to the basic goodness of God – who wove rhythms of sabbath rest into creation and whose invitation to me in this season is to rest in his goodness.

This last year has been tough. Adopting has been joyful but also the hardest thing we have ever done. I love my job but this has been the toughest year of work I’ve known. Changes in our team, transitioning into our second decade as a movement and financial struggles have presented big challenges. My response to those challenges has been to be strong and rely on hard work. I have taken it upon myself to find solutions and save the day, and as a result I have lived at a pace that is not sustainable or healthy.

As I settle into sabbatical, my temptation is to try to optimise – to freight it with expectations, goals and ambitions. I have drilled myself in a self-centred, industrial mindset that frantically seeks to extract the maximum productivity from every opportunity. If my sabbatical is about stopping work, then I think it will require me to go deep down to the roots and to part ways with this industrial mindset.

I want this sabbatical to be a time of slowing down enough to love others well, of being present and interruptible and unhurried. I want to cultivate what John Swinton calls ‘timefulness,’ an alertness to God’s presence in the every-day and a simple delight.

Perhaps that simplicity is key. I’ve had fads on minimalism but my life over the last year has felt cluttered and complicated. My faith is fragile and distracted. Scandals and frustrations at older leaders I had looked up to have bred a creeping cynicism and distrust. I worry that I am becoming harder, sharper, and more judgemental rather than softer, wiser and kinder.    

I’m hungry for simplicity. I walked on the beach a few days ago and the words of psalm 23 came to me. I sang it over and over into the wind. If this sabbatical is to have any aim (and I am very cautious of loading it with the goals that my industrial mindset craves) then I think it is this: to go back to the basics. To return again to the Lord who is my shepherd. To strip away the baggage, the ego, the pride, the self-reliance, the frustration, the cynicism, the shame – and to know that I lack nothing, that I need fear no evil, that his goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life.

This sabbatical is an incredible gift and I want to choose simply to receive – without needing to justify or earn it. I want to simply receive and to delight in God’s goodness. If that is all I do, that will be enough.