It doesn’t feel like a sabbatical — yet. It’s not the daily labor making the house livable, creating the work space (nearly there) and the prayer and study place (complete!!). It’s more that this feels like one of the extended stays we take up here after Christmas and Easter and maybe a week in the summer. The older cat is pretty skittish, waiting to be bunged up in the cat carrier for the trip home. I sympathize.
I did no reading today, spending time in sorting out the 14 years of neglected mess and throwing a lot of things out, setting much aside for recycling and going through old cassette teaching tapes trying to determine if I would ever listen to any of them again. A few made the cut, but only a few. There was one interesting treasure among the detritus, a packet from the cruise ship we took on our honeymoon in 1979. Included in the packet were the menus from the various meals. I know we were only in our 20s but I’m amazed we didn’t need an angioplasty by the time the cruise ended.
Tomorrow is my first Sunday away from Trinity. Even on short vacations it seems odd not to be preparing for the liturgies. So the oddness today is nothing unusual. We’ll see how odd it will feel to get back into that routine come November. Tomorrow evening I’ll be moving the computer down into the work space we created this week and then Monday begins the attempt to establish a pattern of prayerful reading, prayerful reflecting, prayerful note taking and maybe even some prayerful writing. I already miss the folks in our parish and hope and pray that will discover this time apart is a wonderful opportunity exercise their spiritual authority in ministry that comes from their connection with Jesus, not their connection with a priest.
The Apprentice Priest 