suh-ba-tik-uhl

Sabbatical - a period of leave, rooted in the Hebrew word shabbat, that lasts from two months to a year. 

Yes, I'm doing that. 

Today marks my last day for about seven weeks where I'll be in my typical rhythms of coming to the office and teaching on the weekends. After 7 years at Parkview, it seemed like a relevant time to take a pause and reset. Reexamine. Rest. 

So, just some things to note:

1. I won't have any new content - at least I don't plan on it - on the blog until the week of August 15. I appreciate your readership and I hope you'll be ready when I return. I plan on having some sweeter and more significant impressions of the world and faith on the other side of this sabbatical. 

2. I will be working during this time on the revisions for my first book, Becoming Curious: A Spiritual Practice of Asking Questions. I'm very excited about the partnership with InterVarsity Press and the hope is that the book will be ready by April 2017. I'll be updating more on that process through the blog, so if you don't subscribe may I suggest that you sign up today!

The hope is that after this period is over, I'll be refilled to the brim and ready for the next chapter of what God is doing through my ministry at Parkview for the next 7 or however many years may come. 

It will be a good time with family. 
It will be a time of remembering what God made me to do.
It will be a time of reflecting on the fact that my life - all of our lives -
are gifts God is giving to the world. 

I want to leave you with a poem from David Whyte, which I only saw today but it captures the perspective that I'm taking into this brief period during the summer. 

Enjoy. 

"Your Simple Wish"

So that one day you realized, 
that what you wanted
had actually already happened, 
and long ago, and in the dwelling place
in which you lived before you began, 
and that every step along the way, 
you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise, 
that first set you off and then drew you on, 
and that, 
you were more marvelous
in your simple wish to find a way
than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach...

(excerpt from "Santiago", in Pilgrim: Poems By David Whyte, 2012)