Having been back at work for a few weeks now, it feels like a good time to reflect on my three-month sabbatical. I came into sabbatical excited but also in quite a cynical and exhausted place. I hoped for a time of deep rest – a slowing down to be present to God and to my family. I wrote in the first week about a desire to go back to the basics – to simply receive and delight in God’s goodness.
So, how did it go? My workplace’s sabbath policy did not require me to accomplish anything to justify my sabbatical. I’ve been hugely grateful for that freedom. Overall, I have loved this time. Sabbath rest in its various forms is always a gift – God’s gift – which I am grateful to receive. I have loved the simplicity and spaciousness of it. It was precious to have time to play with my son without worrying about getting to the next meeting, time to go for long walks and bike rides, time to read books just because I wanted to read them.
And yet, in many ways, it did not go how I had hoped. Midway through I had to return to work because our funding looked like it was in trouble. I didn’t return full-time, but it meant that the second half of sabbatical was very different from the first – less present and restful, more distracted and stressful and hurried. It felt like my mind, body and soul were just beginning to recover from the toll of a difficult season of work and life, and then I was unexpectedly thrown back in again.
There was definitely some grief there. Grief that my sabbatical was not going to not match up to the years of hopes and dreams I had invested in it. I found myself frustrated at God. In the Hebrew Bible, the practice of sabbath is an act of trust in God’s provision – trusting that God will provide even when we stop work. And, honestly, it felt like God had not kept His side of the deal. There were some hard days processing that disappointment, but I was able to land with some perspective, remembering that sabbatical is a gift, not an entitlement, and a gift that the vast majority of people do not get to enjoy. I could be angry and frustrated that it did not go to plan, or I could make the most of the time that I had. I tried, imperfectly, to choose the latter.
There are no great achievements from my sabbatical – no book, no qualification, no dramatic spiritual breakthrough. I did read quite a few books and got myself a bit fitter. And I think sabbatical has changed me.
Chatting with my spiritual director earlier this week, the theme that kept coming up as we reflected on sabbatical was that I think it humbled me.
Slowing down and being more present at home are lovely in theory, but I found them hard in practice. Maybe for the first time in adult life I could not avoid the question of who I am when I am not working hard and achieving things. I liked to imagine that I was basically quite a kind and patient person, but I was humbled to discover that it only took a few days of childcare or bad sleep or my wife being ill to break that façade. My son is wonderful, but he is two, and that comes with a whirlwind of big feelings and an endless supply of energy. The mundanity of parenting confronted me with my deep selfishness. To my shame, I would catch myself fantasising about how much more fun sabbatical would be without a child.
The humbling came on other levels too – the humbling of achieving far less than I’d hoped for even after I’d tried to manage my expectations and ambitions, and the humbling of realising that I had not done enough to set my team up to thrive while I was off. It wasn’t what I expected from sabbatical, but at the same time, the humbling was not unwelcome. There haven’t been dramatic moments of spiritual encounter over this time, but I’m confident that God has been at work in me – and I think there is grace in the way that I’ve been confronted with my own weakness and self-reliance.
I was nervous about returning to work, but I’ve actually really enjoyed returning fully into the swing of things over the last few weeks. Where I was quite tired and cynical in May, I’ve come back with a fresh energy, vision and passion for work. In the final weeks of sabbatical I re-read some of the books that got me excited about a radical pursuit of Jesus and justice when I was an undergraduate and I felt a re-affirmation of vocation – a renewed clarity that this role and this movement is where God is calling me right now. Being confronted with my selfishness has helped me, very imperfectly, to love my wife and my son better. And on a very simple level, I love Jesus more. I’ve been angry at him, for sure, but I’ve also been wooed again by his beauty and goodness. I don’t need to justify sabbatical, but if I did, I’d say those are good outcomes.
I don’t want to try to force a positive spin on this. Parts of it have been really hard, sad and frustrating. But that is the reality of life this side of new creation. Many more parts have been gentle, precious and deeply restful. It may not have been exactly the gift I had anticipated, but it was most certainly a gift.
Notes From the Potting Shed 