How Round-Up at Panera De-Supersized Me

Two falls ago on campus, I came into the year with tons of high hopes. Our ministry had grown the previous year to record numbers, we had some strong people in place and a clear vision and some good culture-changes. We were ready (so I thought) to take off.

And then the school year actually happened. And for a number of reasons (including some that I do not fully understand) the start of the year was a train-wreck. What I thought was going to be a year of momentum and success and growth started out a disaster.

And I became a train-wreck. I couldn't sleep at night. I was anxious, angry, taciturn, grumpy, perpetually frustrated. My wise wife saw how I was sinking with each successive speed-bump and she called me out: I needed some perspective on all of this. I took a four month sabbatical.

Over the course of my sabbatical, I spent countless hours at Panera with my Bible, journal, and my Ipod shuffled through Handel's "Messiah" endlessly. And while I sat there at Panera with my Bible, journal, and Handel, the Lord began to ask me some significant questions.

Who's kingdom was this about, really? Was this Jesus' kingdom or Alex's? Who's name was I seeking to advance? Was it about His name or mine?

In my self-deception I had taken my own ego and this work (supposedly done in God's name, for God's name) and made it all about me. I claimed it was all about Jesus, Lord over the universe. Really it was all about me, becoming super-sized. I spent many hours spraying the Round-Up of repentance on the roots of my self-absorption and re-rooting myself in Jesus

And so yesterday's post about the importance of overcoming our self-deception rang in my heart this morning as I read Jesus' question at the end of John to the guards who are coming to arrest him and take him to his execution: "Who is it that you seek?"

Jesus knows who they seek. They seek him--to arrest him and to kill him. He has been praying about this, talking about it with his friends the disciples. The question isn't out of ignorance, it is to bring what is being done in darkness into the light.

And the question has the same impact as I considered it today: who is it that I seek? Do I truly seek the One who made me, died for me, rose for me? Or do I seek a Jesus made in my own image? Do I seek to be like God (the first temptation) or do I seek the one who is God who invites me to make my dwelling in him and allow him to dwell in me?

Is this whole God thing really just an extension of my own ego or is it the Holy Other who comes to meet me but who will only meet me on his terms. There is no negotiation between my ego and Jesus. I will love one and hate the other. One will win and one will lose in the battle for supremacy in my heart.

Who is it that I seek? Is it Jesus or is it me, supersized?

For today, at least as best as I can see and know and understand, I give myself to Jesus. And I recognize that sometimes the one that I call Jesus can sometimes be just a smokescreen for self-advancement. And so I can only give all that I know of myself--including my perpetual temptation to self-deceive--to all that I know of Jesus and ask him to sort it all out.

Good thing he's good at that sort of thing.

Back to Work Day 10: Celebrating My Superfluous-ness

So I've wrapped up ten straight days of work after a four month sabbatical from my work on campus. Looking back at the fall, things started off fairly atrocious but they were in stable, if not spectacular, condition when I left.

I'm delighted to report after ten days back that things in our community have improved greatly in my absence. At points in my life this would have been somewhat disheartening. Who doesn't like to feel like the world would stop if they disappeared?

But for this season (today, at any rate), I'm celebrating my superfluous-ness. This was, after all, the original point of rest in the Scriptures.

The commandment to take "sabbath" in the Old Testament was radical in its context. In an agrarian society, when the crops need to be planted, you plant. When they need to be picked, you pick.

Taking a day off no matter what stage the crops were in was reckless. The command to rest on the seventh day was the command to take a day off and trust the Lord with the results. It was to be a reckless rest of faith. God was to be their provider. This was a weekly reminder of his sovereign provision for them.

And so as I return to this InterVarsity community that I am certain that God has called me to serve, it is great news to me that I am not as important as I often like to think that I am. This is God's work. He was here long before I got here and will continue to be here long after I leave.

This relieves me of thinking of myself too highly, as too important or central. And this is the only way I can be free of the tyranny of a burden that is too great for me to bear. The weight of the ministry is not on me. It is on God.

I am not as important as I like to think that I am. Instead, I am more deeply loved than I ever hoped or imagined.

Back to Work Day 2: Where's the Bathroom?

Captain's log, day 2 back at work after four month sabbatical hiatus. I'm starting to remember what it is I did in my former life.

The best image for my slightly dis-oriented re-entry came from my student Amanda. It's like being the new kid in the class half-way through the school year--'when do we have lunch? who are these people? where's the bathroom?' I'm trying to find my way around, hoping for people to have pity on me as I ask questions that I feel like I should know the answers to.

Meeting with my co-staff today helped me, they're being very patient with my bouts of re-entry senility. You can pray for them.

And you can pray for me--good grief, I still haven't met with any students yet. Some days I'll go for six hour straight with appointments back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I'm too out of shape for that at this point. But it'll come.

Hopefully they'll be willing to help the new kid find the bathroom.

My Key to Joyful Re-entry: The Right Preposition

So on Friday I talked about my goals coming into sabbatical...and how good the Lord has been to help me get traction towards those goals. Goal #4 ran the deepest, here's what it was:

To seek the Lord about what it means to do campus work healthily--some in terms of expectations and margins, but especially as it relates to keeping my identity separate and distinct from the ups and downs of ministry.

The idea here is to develop healthy emotional distance between me and my work. There's my own identity in Christ. Then there's the work God's called me to do. They are related, but not identical...something that I often forget.

I've been particularly aided in this task over the past week as I've been reading the book "Boundaries." And the idea that I've been meditating on is replacing the wrong preposition with the right preposition; replacing for with to.

In "Boundaries" they contend that at the core, emotionally healthy people have a clear sense of what we can and can't control. What we can control is ourselves, our responses, our actions, our decisions. What we can't control is what other people do, how they respond or react.

They argue that to emotionally healthy people understand that they are responsible to other people but not for other people.

So as a parent, I'm responsible to my children to parent with love, discipline, encouragement, teaching, correcting, play, etc. but I am not ultimately responsible for how they turn out. As they grow older, they are responsible for making their own decisions. I'm responsible to them but not for them. They are their own people.

The same principle applies in marriage, work relationships, family dynamics, etc. We are responsible to one another but we are not responsible for one another. We have to realize where we end and where other people begin. That's healthy emotional boundaries.

It's also really hard for control-freak over-achievers like myself.

And so as I return to work tomorrow morning with the rest of America, I'm praying for holy and healthy prepositions to help me: I'm responsible to the community of InterVarsity students that I serve, but I'm not responsible for them. Some students will stay and flourish. Some will stay on the periphery. Some will be regularly frustrated or critical of things we do. Some will leave. As a whole we will inevitably have seasons of growth and seasons of struggle.

I have a responsibility to serve and lead as faithfully as I can. But ultimately, I cannot make the community or individuals in the community do or be anything. I must do what I can to be a healthy, whole, mature human being, speaking truth as faithfully as I can, in step with the Spirit.

The rest is up to the people that I serve to respond to the Spirit as He does His work. Doing this would go a long way towards making me a healthy campus minister...not to mention a better husband, dad, and son.

The key to this whole thing is the right preposition....I knew there was some reason why I was an English major.

Sabbatical Journey's End

Today is my last day of sabbatical. On Monday, I return to the life of the peasantry; it's back to work for me. Four months have never gone by so fast.

My overwhelming feeling today is one of gratitude. How many 30-somethings in mid-career are given four months to go and reflect, restore, renew, and regroup?

I'm tremendously grateful for supportive supervisors and staff colleagues. I'm incredibly indebted to those who have continued to support me financially during my sabbatical in uncertain economic times--as long as my supporters have kept their jobs, they have kept supporting me.

I took a couple hours this morning to reflect on what the Lord had done in me the past four months. What I needed was more like a couple of days. But I did come upon something that encouraged me.

This past fall was one of the most frustrating starts to the school year that I've ever had. Things just didn't click.

But what made me realize that I needed sabbatical was not that things went wrong, it was how I responded to it. I was angry. I was over-wrapped-up in all the bumps and dips that we hit in August and September.

When I stopped long enough to listen to the noises in my soul, I realized that I was tripping warning flags. I needed to pull back and re-center. I could have played through, but it was clear that to continue to do so would have only further put me in jeopardy of doing something galactically stupid.

Christian leaders end up in newspapers because they don't pay attention to the warning signs along the way.

So as I entered into sabbatical-land, I wrote up these four goals for my time away--and of course, I didn't look at them again until this morning. But here they are:

Goal #1: To come back to campus in mid-March a healthy and holy human being.

Goal #2: That my wife & kids would be blessed by this season of rest.

Goal #3: To have a battery of fresh understandings and insights and celebrations as a result of intentionally reflecting on the past twelve and a half years in ministry.

Goal #4: To seek the Lord about what it means to do campus work healthily--some in terms of expectations and margins, but especially as it relates to keeping my identity separate and distinct from the ups and downs of ministry.

There some things on this list that I could do. And there are some things on this list that only the Lord could do. And as I sit here four months after putting these things on paper, I am delighted to say that he has moved in all four of these areas.

I'm certainly not done. Just last night I repeated a stupid sin pattern that the Lord has been working with me on during sabbatical, and I was humbled and reminded how much further I need to go.

But today is a day of celebration. God has provided for me in ways that I could not have imagined four months ago. He is my God, my good Father, my Lord; I am his son, his servant, his disciple, his follower. I have never been more glad in those things than I am today.

And so on Monday, it's time to go back to work.

Sabbatical Journey Day 89: Avoiding Amnesia of the Now

A couple of weeks ago I was asking someone older and wiser how he thought I should spend my last several weeks of sabbatical.

His response: "Don't spend these last weeks spooling up. You start back March 16th, that's when you start thinking about campus work again."

Great advice for type-A folks like me who tend to over-think and over-worry things well in advance. I've waited thirteen years for my sabbatical, why give away one-fourth of it by ramping up for something that will come whether I ramp up for it or not?

It makes me wonder in the big-picture how very much of my life I foolishly give away thinking about a time or events that will take place in the near or distant future. How many opportunities for laughter, prayer, caring for someone, or meeting the Lord in a situation have I missed because I'm too far-sighted to see what's right in front of me?

My good friends Willis and Amy Weber have a great phrase for this that I posted on about a year ago: the amnesia of the now. The post tries to capture some of the brilliance of their delightfully wise phrase. Lord, protect me from this sickness.

Ergo, I'm drilling even deeper down into sabbatical land: more great books (Perelandra this week, the C.S. Lewis book from whence the name "Piebald Life" came) , quality time at Starbucks and Panera, long naps, lunches with friends, time with the family...and UNC basketball.

Speaking of which, hope the Heels pull tonight's game out. It's half-time and we look decent so far, but this is NC State's Superbowl. They'll be eager to come out strong in the second half.

Shutting Up in Burlap in 2016

Sunday morning at our "Faith Formation Class" (a.k.a. Sunday school with a less boring title) we were studying James 3. It's one of the most searing passages of all of Scripture, talking about the destructive and deceitful nature of our tongues. Consider this:

...no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

Ouch. I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about here, but I'm sure some of you might.

Last week I finished Henri Nouwen's book The Genesee Diary. Nouwen spent seven months on sabbatical at a Trappist monastery from his teaching post. The book is a diary of his experience. It has been extremely helpful for me--especially last week as I read about his last month and the "P.S." that he wrote six months afterwards about his re-entry into normal life.

The Trappists are famous for having a fairly strict rule of silence--particularly on the grounds of the monastery. They mostly use sign language to communicate. If they must speak they often will retreat to a room away from common areas in order to maintain the general quiet of the place.

Nouwen says that the rule of silence had a couple of profound affects on him:

1. He realized how much he used words to manipulate the people around him into liking him. Words were his key tool for enduring himself to people, for building himself up and getting people to appreciate him.

2. But it wasn't just his own silence that was disorienting for him. The people around him were neither critical nor approving of him. He couldn't find his place in the pecking order. He was left stranded by the lack of feedback from the people around him--exposing another (unhealthy) prop in his emotional and relational world.

All of this had the effect of leaving him to deal with the people around him and with the Lord as he really was. He was just a person, along with everyone else--naked, exposed, without his primary tool for advancing himself or navigating his way into privileged or affirmed places.

Since I am, after all, a flaming extroverted people-pleasing external (verbal and written) processor, this whole idea of living a life of silence scares me to death. I wonder if I could do it for longer than a couple days without spontaneously combusting.

But I also wonder if the experience (of silence, not spontaneous combustion) might ultimately bring some much-needed freedom and life and joy.

Next sabbatical, 2016: get me to a monastery. I hope that the burlap doesn't itch too much.

Sabbatical Journey: T-Minus Four Weeks

You know, at any other point in my life if someone said, "Hey, take four weeks off and do whatever" it would be awesome. But as it is, staring down the last month of my sabbatical feels a little like it's all going so very fast.

I was talking with Joe Moore, national spiritual formation guru and all-around quality human being about my return: "I feel this pressure to come back monastic. Zen-like. Perfectly at peace with myself and God and nature or something."

He responded to my sarcasm by saying that detachment might be an important thing for me to think and pray about over the next four weeks. Detachment, this cognitive distance between me and the work, me and the people around me, me and my circumstances.

I took my sabbatical not because the start of the fall semester was so hard but because it was hard and I felt myself over-reacting. I could tell that my internal world was not balanced. I was overly-wrapped up in all that was going on. So I knew that I needed some space. I needed some detachment in my life.

The problem was, I couldn't think of one leader that I admired who seemed to be detached. Passionate, visionary, committed, strong, humble, servants, leaders, teachers, counselors...all sorts of adjectives, but detached wasn't one that came to mind for any of them.

And then, I looked at Jesus.

He loves people but does not cater to them. He says harsh words and gentle words in step with the Spirit, not to try to make people happy. At times he teaches and the large crowds gather and listen with delight. At times he teaches his "chapter" and the people leave.

Detachment didn't initially sit well with me. It seemed too removed, too un-moved, apathetic or passive. But Jesus' detachment from the crowd and his ministry "success" or "failure" starts with a rabid attachment. He is deeply connected with his Father. All else is secondary.

So I'm drilling down these last four weeks into the love of the Father. I hope to lead more like Jesus when I get back to campus in about four weeks. Maybe I won't be one with nature come March 16th.

But I can be anchored in the love of a perfect Father to free me to love and serve with a holy detachment. That would be a great blessing to students, my staff team, my family, and my own soul. And that would be a sabbatical well-spent, indeed.

Sabbatical Journey Day 63: Inklings of Awakening

The most surprising part about the start of my sabbatical was how tired I was. Accordingly, I found that I had very little interest in thinking/talking/engaging with "ministry stuff." I was relieved to just go to church, sit on my butt, lead my little small group through James, and hang out.

A couple of weeks ago I started to worry: what if I was still un-interested in ministry stuff in mid-March when I had to go back to campus and think about ministry stuff?

But this past Sunday we had a church-wide new-year congregational meeting. We were talking about the challenges that we face as a growing church plant meeting in a school gymnasium in uncertain economic times: space issues, budget concerns, opportunities for growth, etc.

And I found myself pretty jazzed about it. What could I do? Where could I jump in?

The answer for now, of course, is nothing and no where. I'm on sabbatical and it's good for me to fast from those impulses for the rest of this precious and short season.

But I've gotta' admit that it was a little bit of a relief to find that those impulses were still there.

Sabbatical P.S.

This weekend was the half-way point of my sabbatical. Break out the orange slices and the Gatorade.

It's been a great two months mostly focused on the un-hooking process. These next two months will be much more about engaging with the issues of my own soul and then reflecting on my 12 and a half years of ministry.

But today I'm freshly grateful for an organization that has given me this gift and for the supporters who are continuing to make it possible.

I'm looking forward to what the next two months hold.

Gifts and Destruction

So this season of my sabbatical I'm focusing on more specific soul-level work and evaluation. My goal is to have a more clear-eyed understanding of who I am (one definition of humility is simply seeing ourselves as we really are) and to be able to evaluate more faithfully what my thirteen years in ministry has been about.

To do this work, I'm reading about the Enneagram. It's basically an A.P. (Advanced Placement, for those of you for whom high school was a long time ago) Myers-Briggs.

It's a pretty interesting and thorough-going look at personality and ability and motives and how all our baggage and gifts come together for good and/or for ill. The book I'm reading recommends that people engage with the Enneagram sometime in their mid-30's to late-forties, after they've had some time to establish some life-patterns and perhaps become discontent with those patterns.

It's helpful for me that the book I'm reading was written by Richard Rohr, a Catholic Franciscan priest. He is good to tie in a Christian world-view along with biblical characters and saints throughout the ages who fit the different types.

I've just finished reading an overview of the nine types that they sketch out. I'm still trying to figure out where I "fit."

But the core insight that I really resonate with is that our gifts, passions and power that give us the most life also contain the seeds of our self-destruction. Rohr insists on the centrality of repentance and redemption of every type (or "number" in the Eneagram structure) in order for these gifts to mature and bear the fruit that they were made for.

I have seen this already at work in my life. My places of greatest strength and gifting are the places where I'm most tempted towards self-serving and independence rather than dependence on the Spirit and help to do the work faithfully.

Sabbatical Journey Day 43: Six Week Reflections

A smattering of thoughts from my first six weeks in sabbatical land:

*Sabbatical Unhooking. Perhaps it will come as some encouragement to my students who read this that it's been harder for me to mentally leave campus than I anticipated.

Some of this, of course, has to do with the challenges we had this fall--would've, could've, should'ves have plagued me at various (and sometimes surprising) times. A wise mentor told me it would take about a month to un-hook. That's been about right.

*Sabbatical, Interrupted. It's been a really choppy six weeks. Some of that is just the normal holiday travel and celebrations. Some of that is unusual circumstances: sickness, crisis, etc. But if there was going to be a really choppy month of sabbatical I'm glad it's been this first stretch--it may have in fact facilitated the unhooking process.

*Sabbatical Guilt. Over the past six weeks I've gotten word of several friends who have lost jobs. Losing your job always stinks, but it's obviously even more loaded during the holidays. So I've got friends who are jobless and wondering what's next and here I am, slacking.

Of course, the response to this is that there is always some reason why it's not a good time to be on sabbatical. This particular season it's a bad time because of the economy and some of my friends circumstances. But my clear sense is that this sabbatical is given to me by the Lord for for this time. The Lord has appointed me to have my own seasons of struggle, turmoil, conflict, sadness, victory and celebration. This is a season given to me to rest. It is not a gift that it would be wise to reject or to spend overly-much time feeling guilty about.

*Sabbatical Contemplation. When I first started Piebald Life, my explanation for the title was that it described this split in my inner-world. Part of me is dialed into people, leadership, programs, seeing God's people grow and communities develop and is driven (sometimes to a fault) towards what I consider to be successful ministry.

But another part that I have acquired and developed over the years is a contemplative side. The contemplative tradition in Christianity is devoted to long periods of silence, solitude, reflecting on God's character and beauty and power and worth and our own internal world along as it connects with the wonder and glory of God.

At this point in my life and ministry, I have no problems moving from "leader" mode into "contemplative" mode. In fact, there's a good bit of relief in the transition. Sometimes, I'm afraid, I enjoy the contemplative side because it involves two things that I find endlessly fascinating: God and myself. Clearly, an over-fascination with the latter is not a good thing. I need the Lord to help me from switching the order of those two things and to keep me from making the contemplative life an escape from serving or loving others. Perhaps, again, this is part of the gift of these first six weeks being so choppy.

*Sabbatical "Progress." Even in the midst of some interruption and not much of the rhythm I hoped, I have done what I wanted (and I think needed) to do during these first six weeks. I have unhooked. I have read Lord of the Rings. I have watched plenty of college football. I have spent some sweet hours at Starbucks and/or Panera with my Bible and journal. This first season of sabbatical is over--I have taken the deep breath that I needed.

The next stretch will be devoted to more directed soul-examination. And beyond that, to looking back over the past 13 years in ministry to see if a birds-eye-view of the patterns, opportunities, challenges and set-backs might bear the fruit in my soul of worship and understanding what God has done so that I might be more fully equipped to follow him more eagerly in the future.

Sabbatical Journey Day 14: Transitioning

Sometimes when I'm really tired and get a good night sleep I'm crankier than I was in my sleep-deprived state. The sleep un-masks how tired I really am.

That was me for most of last week. In my first full week of actual sabbatical (the previous week being Thanksgiving week), I was alternately moody, grumpy, taciturn, checked out and occasionally slightly unpleasant.

I find that when I feel down or out of sorts, the sin that is most recurring is the coveting of my time. I don't want to be generous with "my" time (C.S. Lewis graciously but viciously pulls back the curtain on the whole concept of time being "ours" in Screwtape Letters) when I don't feel like I'm in a settled place.

I think many of us Type-A, slightly over-achiever types have this problem. It probably has something to do with control-freak issues, but that's another post for another day.

It seems that the path to health necessarily goes through this phase. A disturbing number of my students tell me that they like to stay busy because they don't like what comes to the surface when they slow down. Similarly, I don't like to be moody. Left to my own devices, I'd stay busy so that I didn't have to deal with feeling lethargic and weighed down.

But here's the deal: to keep running on a broken leg only exacerbates the problem. I have to work through the grumps to get to the life on the other side.

And the Lord was good to turn things around towards the end of the week. Of course, since he knows me and loves me, the life-line that he tossed me came in the form of community: three tremendous men who contacted me about getting together. It is a humbling and wonderful thing to have real friends.

These conversations seemed unusually rich. Afterward each one a phrase or a word or a piece of the conversation continued to roll around in my head--things that the Lord was trying to show me or wanted me to think about.

And I'm half-way through Lord of the Rings. And I got a Starbucks card in the mail on Saturday from some dear old friends. What more could I possibly ask for?

It's going to be a good sabbatical.

About my Nun

So one of the things that I spend most of my days doing on campus is discipling, mentoring, helping students navigate issues of spirituality, dating, leadership, UNC religious studies classes, fantasy football, whatever.

As a student, I had some tremendous IV staff workers who invested in me. It wasn't until about my fourth year out of college that I realized how much I missed having someone older and wiser who talked with me regularly to help me sort through my stuff. I was doing this for students, but didn't have it for myself. I started praying that the Lord would bring someone into my life who might do this for me. But folks like this are tough to come by.

About this time, several IV staff and other folks in ministry that I knew started talking about their nuns. They had recognized this same need in themselves and had somehow gotten connected with a local nun who met with them regularly for spiritual direction. "Where do I get one of those?" I wondered. Is there a Rent-A-Nun place that I could call?

It was actually a couple of years before I found my nun. Doug Stewart is a national InterVarsity spiritual formation guru. He also happened to be in a class I took one summer with InterVarsity. He also happens to be from North Carolina and has a soft spot for all things Tar Heel. He is old and wise in the Lord and in ministry. He is also an extrovert who also has a deep spiritual life--something that I was despairing of ever finding.

So Doug and I have talked about monthly for nearly five years now. I am spoiled to have such a tremendous resource speaking into my life. He is my official sabbatical supervisor, which means that our interactions will be more frequent over the next three and a half months. I'm booking a visit to see him later this winter. There are few reasons why I would travel to Chicago in the winter. Doug is one.

We talked yesterday. He spoke wisdom (as he always does)--this time about my sabbatical: Take the first month to unwind. Read a fun book. Don't try to do too much or be too intense to start with. Just enjoy the Lord. We'll do more soul-work later. Enjoy Christmas and your kids. Start to exercise, it will help release some of the anxiety you carry around in your body and soul. Go Heels.

Thanks goodness for my nun.

Sabbatical Journey Day 10: Automechanic Spirituality

So my car has barely started at every start-up for about two months now. Literally, every time I started it I wondered if it was going to be the last time it would start. It kept starting, so I kept putting off taking it into the shop.

But sabbatical is a time when I'm cleaning out my to-do list. I went to DMV on Monday and renewed my driver's license--which I expected to eat up the next three and a half months of my sabbatical but surprisingly only took twenty minutes. Buoyed by such an expected gift, I took the car in today and had them look at it.

They called me an hour after I dropped it off. The battery, they reported, was so low on juice that they were surprised that it had started for me this morning. "A lawnmower takes more juice to get started than what you had left in your battery," Chris said at Auto-Pro-to-Call.

Given that it's been barely-starting for two months, I've wondered how long it's been that low.

It strikes me that I'm as inclined to keep running my car as I am to keep running myself. As long as the car starts, I'm not all that interested in addressing the fact that it sounds iffy. As long as I can get up out of bed each day, I'm generally not all that inclined to stop and tend to my soul.

This sabbatical pit-stop for me is really about paying attention to the noises of my soul and re-charging. It's not as quick and easy as swapping out a battery. But for that I'm strangely thankful today.

Sabbatical Journey Day 3: A Sabbatical Narrative

In his book Leading Change John Kotter urges business-types who are trying to make a major change in the direction of their company to "create short-term wins." The idea here is that early success boosts morale and enthusiasm for the changes that you're trying to implement.

So on Monday, after 9 days of being sick, I decided the troops (meaning me) needed to a short-term sabbatical win. So I went to Barnes and Noble and purchased my very first me-owned copy of Lord of the Rings. If that's not a win, I'm not sure what is.

Then I went to the doctor's office. She gave me the gift of an unexpected hour to read the aforementioned recently purchased Lord of the Rings book by calling me back an hour after my appointment was scheduled.

But at least I have bronchitis. If I'm going to feel sick and crappy, I want there to be some legitimacy to it. I got some antibioitics (why is everyone so anti biotics all the time?) and a weird inhaler-thing.

A couple things about the new-school inhalers. First, they're not the same puff-things that the cool asthmatic kids who smoked back in elementary school used to use. Nor are they the same puff-things that the nerdy, sickly asthamatic kids used to use. I got this real cute purple and pink disc-shaped thing that you might see on a commercial on Oxygen--not that I've actually watched any Oxygen in the 48 hours I've had cable, I promise.

I basically pull a small lever back on and then inhale deeply at a little port. You gotta' rinse your mouth out afterwards or else you get a yeast infection in your mouth. Nothing says pass the turkey and stuffing like an oral yeast infection.

Secondly, the inhaler is clearing out my lungs using a steroid. Which explains 1. why I felt like I was running on a Vault Energy drink until 2 a.m. Monday night and 2. how I lifted that semi-trailer off the trapped kid yesterday morning.

Yesterday afternoon I finally got my couple hours at Starbucks. Great to have un-hurried, un-harried Jesus time. I worked on a pre-sabbatical worksheet given to me by my sabbatical supervisor and spiritual director Doug Stewart (more on him forthcoming). The whole purpose of this time is becoming more and more clear: restore my soul by going deep with Jesus.

Now if we can just heal up two pink-eyes, two ear-infections, a couple of poked-through teeth, my bronchitis, some ebola virus, a case of tetanus, an ingrown toe-nail and overcome a couple bad hair days, we'll be ready to drive to Nanny and Grampy's and celebrate a little Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Sabbatical Journey Day 2: Further Proof that I Have the Best Wife Ever

So we don't have cable. This was a joint decision before our marriage and it was more of a values decision than anything else. We wanted our home to be full of guests and laughter and music and reading rather than the dull (albeit warm) glow of the television.

For my part, the only thing I care to watch are sports, particularly football, which by and large can be found on free t.v.

As we've had kids and are working to live on 1 & 1/4 salary, this is both a values and an economics decision. Our kids go most weeks without watching any t.v. (until weekend football games with me) and so far we've managed to work it so that Kelly can stay home with the kids.

We've never been Nazi's about this. Whenever we're with family or friends who have cable, we're as excited as anyone to see what we can find among the several million or so channels. And our kids are shocked to see that the t.v. can actually work without fuzz, interference, or having to adjust the rabbit ears.

But yesterday, Santa came early in a Time Warner truck.

Because while I mostly don't miss having cable, college basketball season has just tipped off. And that's the one sport where I can't get most of the games on our rabbit ears. And so for an early Christmas present, Kelly has hooked us up with digital cable for the duration of my sabbatical.

Over the next four months, Time Warner digital cable will deliver to my very television college football Bowl games and tons of college hoops. When my sabbatical ends at the end of March, college basketball season will be entering it's final (free broadcast t.v.) stages of the March Madness journey. And the only thing left on cable will be baseball, which is about as interesting as watching toe-fungus grow.

Further proof (as if any were needed) that I do, indeed, have the world's greatest wife.

Sabbatical Journey Day 1

All growing up, my mom used to scurry around cleaning and stressing out in the hours leading up to our vacation. This made no sense to me. Why are we stressing out to hurry up and rest?

Then last week hit. And I had a couple of major tasks to get done before I could go on sabbatical. And I got a nasty cold. And all week long I fretted over my need for naps that meant the tasks kept getting bumped back and back and back--and with them, my start date to rest.

So here I am, sabbatical journey, day one, just a couple days tardy. But my cold, far from running its' natural course and moving on, is still in full bloom. And I'm particularly grumpy about it. This is not how sabbatical is supposed to start.

So I'm going to the doctor this afternoon at 2:15 instead of hanging out at Starbucks. At least for today I don't have to worry about agoraphobia: fear of wide open spaces.

Perhaps this is sabbatical lesson #1: what happens to my internal world when my plans don't work out like I want them to?

I would be remiss if I didn't note this special day: Davis' 5th bithday is today. And not only do I love the kid in the way that all healthy parent-child relationships should, I genuinely and really like the kid. His baseline personality is sweet, playful, earnest, fun, enthusiastic, eager to help and a joy to be around. This Saturday we had ten of his little buddies over for a party--a great little crew of boys that are sweet friends.

I know that we'll have ups and downs, as we will with all our kids. But let it be noted, on the 5th annual celebration of his birth, that I'm ridiculously proud of my little boy...who's growing up so fast.