Sabbatical August 28, 2008

“A sabbatical (from the Latin sabbaticus, from the Greek sabbatikos, from Hebrew shabbathon, i.e., Sabbath. ) is a rest from work, a hiatus.”

Today, I felt the joy of being on sabbatical.  Let me explain.

It was opening convocation at King and Thomas Lynch was the convocation speaker.  I haven’t officially been in the office the last couple weeks.  Today, I went to campus to convocation and sat in the audience and listened.  Normally, I would have had to process in in my academic regalia, sit on the stage with the other deans and be all official.  I love that usually, but today, it was great just to be me.  No robes, no titles, no roles.  Just me in my jeans and comfy Birkenstocks.

Then I had a couple things I needed to complete before taking off for Europe (I love saying that–sounds so cosmopolitan and worldly).   I took my time and enjoyed talking to people.  I didn’t feel stressed or rushed.  As I was walking out of the library, I saw a student I knew and we chatted about how things were going.  She’s a senior trying to figure out what that next step should be.  It was great just to take time to talk to her for a few minutes without having to go to a meeting or complete and errand or teach a class.  Just be with someone else.

I was reading some definitions and explanations of sabbaticals.  One person said they have such enduring appeal because they allow people time away from their work roles and give people the ability to step outside one of the major “false identifications that I am my job.”  A sabbatical is a chance to be me.  Myself.

Today, I got to be me.

A New Adventure August 25, 2008

At church we have started a new sermon series in Acts and today’s sermon covered Acts 1:6-11. The gist of the sermon was that God has called us to live His great adventure of being His witnesses to all the world. He calls us beyond our inadequacies and sends us out in the power of the Holy Spirit to be his witnesses. The quote that stuck out the most for me was this: Jesus didn’t come to make us safe. He came to make us brave.

As new details about where I’ll be living and what I’ll be doing over the next couple months have been revealed over the last few weeks, I’ve learned that there are plenty of things that I can’t control or predict. For someone who likes to plan as much as I do, that’s a challenge. Even if I knew everything that would happen, I still can’t control it or predict it.  That’s the definition of adventure.  It’s uncontrollable and unpredictable.  Who wants a boring adventure anyway?

These were good words to hear this morning.  As the time gets closer for me to leave, I have the inevitable fears and questions.  It’s normal to wonder how things will be and if I’ll be adequate to the task ahead.  But, I really needed that reminder and challenge to remember that it’s not about me.  It’s about  Christ.

I’ve been so focused on what I need for this trip or what I’ll be doing or what I’ll gain from this trip. This morning it struck me that Christ is the reason I’m going. It’s so that His glory will be revealed and so that the Good News will be proclaimed. While I hope that God will reveal more of His will for me on this trip and that He will take me deeper in my relationship with him, it’s really not about me at all. It’s about sharing the love and hope of Christ.  That is what compels me.  

The Countdown Begins August 7, 2008

In a month, I’ll be on an airplane, Slovakia-bound.  This trip has been coming up for a while and now I can hardly believe that it’s actually almost time to go.  I’ll be spending September-November in Bratislava, Slovakia working with Bratislava Educational Resource Center.  I’ll be helping to develop the library and doing some English teaching also.

I’ve been pretty excited about this trip.  Of course, now that it’s almost here, the inevitable thoughts of “what was I thinking when I decided to spend 3 months in a foreign country” have settled in.  I’ve no doubt it will be a life changing experience and the opportunity of a lifetime.  As I’m writing this post, I’m listening to one of my favorite singers, David Wilcox.  A line from one of the songs, Perfect Storm is “Life is change and change is frightening.”  The song is all about how we learn from adversity and storms.  In the middle of those storms we can often receive a burst of illumination, much like lightening in a thunder storm, that lights our path and tells us which way to go.  Wilcox explains on his website:

But this song is about looking up from the yearning we feel, that voltage between heaven and earth that arcs in the human heart. When I was making my way home down a path in the dark as the storm was blowing in, it was the brief flashes of lightning that showed me where I was and where I was going. I am very grateful for those times when my heart is full to bursting with a flash of inspiration that feels like the purpose of my being here. I get quite a charge out of knowing that we are given the task of being a conduit for illumination in this world; we put our lives across that distance where this longing turns to light. My old song SHOW THE WAY says: don’t give up on being the change, like a candle in the dark, just because the world needs so much light. But this song takes it farther and says: even our despair is cause for hope.

This trip and the longing to take such a trip was born out of some of my own times of adversity.  I was asking and searching for what God wanted me to do next in my life.  I realized that I would have an opportunity for a sabbatical this year.  And so, here I am going off to Slovakia for 3 months.  While it’s exciting, it’s also change.  Here’s some initial prayer requests:

• Preparation and packing–I need to start doing this soon.
• A good ministry fit between BERC and my skills and abilities
• Good transitions to Bratislava
• My meeting time with Roberta Hill, the director of BERC, in Buffalo, NY before I head off to Bratislava

A New Revelation August 3, 2008

I am an infinitely impatient person.  That’s not a new revelation at all, but lately I’m discovering the depth of my impatience.  It always seems God has a way of revealing and stripping away the things that I take pride in.  My patience for example.  People have complimented me on my patience in the past.  I do consider myself to have a fairly high degree of patience with people.  Longsuffering.  A friend of mine calls it my “high tolerance for weird.”

I can be patient at times except when I feel like things that matter most to me are at stake.  A friendship.  A relationship.  A job.  A family member.  Then, everything in me screams.  What I do want?  Certainty.   When do I want it?  Now.  What do I want?  Security.  When do I want it? Now. What do I want?  Rest.  When do I want it?  Now.  I do protest too much.

All my protesting eventually leads me back to the same place it always does eventually.  I come back again to God as my only foundation.  My only hope.  My only true security.  I don’t have answers, but He does.  I don’t know the way the pathway lies.  He does.  I don’t know the end of the story.  He does.  So, again, I come back, surrender my pride and my protests and rest again.  In him.

One day, I’m going to meet the person who has been praying for me to be patient.  I’m going to smack them.  Really hard.

Take It All
words by Mark Lee / music by Third Day

All the promises I’ve broken
All the times I’ve let you down
You’ve forgot them
But still I hold on to the pain that makes me drown
Now I’m ready
To let it go
To give it away

Take it all
‘Cause I can’t take it any longer
All I have, I can’t make it on my own
Take the first, take the last
Take the good and take the rest
Here I am, all I have
Take it all

All the roads that lie before me
All the struggles I go through
Every second I’m reminded
That it all belongs to you
Now I’m ready
To let it go
To give it away

Ever since I died to myself
You gave a better life to me
I give you my finest moment
I give you the last breath I breathe