You’ll be reading this just as my sabbatical time begins, and I wanted to offer a word of gratitude and blessing to you for the months ahead. As I enjoy some vacation this August and then move into sabbatical time for September through November, I am keenly aware of what a rare gift such a time is. I do not find it wise for me to broadcast loudly or broadly “I GET A SABBATICAL!”, since a very understandable response to that could be: “When do I get one?!” There are few vocations that make space for sabbaticals, and few churches that set sabbatical as policy for their pastors. So while I cannot fix that sabbatical deficit for others, I can deeply appreciate and be a good steward of the time you are giving me, believing it will help me to serve Hope Church and our community well in the years ahead. I am very eager for a time of in-depth reading in the coming months, and I’m hopeful my start at learning Spanish will go well. And the time to travel with my wife and to have a change of pace in schedule with my family will be a wonderful part of this as well.
During these months I’m sure to see many of you in the neighborhood and around town, and just in case anyone was wondering about sabbatical etiquette, you don’t have to avoid me! I’ll be glad to see you, and expect you’ll also see me unobtrusively attending worship on some Sundays (since my family attends Hope Church!).
During these months I will be praying for all of you, the Consistory, Pastor Jill and our staff, as the ministry of Hope Church continues. I’m grateful to be a Pastor of Hope Church, but I have no illusions about being indispensable here! It’s a gift to be able to focus on my sabbatical knowing that such gifted people are tending to the life and ministry of Hope Church. I want you to know too that I will be informed if there are deaths in the congregation so that I can express my sympathy and prayers. My love and prayers are with all of you, and I will look forward to resuming my daily pastoral duties in late November just as Thanksgiving and Advent are on the horizon.
And finally, I’ll share with you this poem I wrote before my sabbatical in 2007 – a poem I am reflecting on again as I approach this sabbatical, and I offer it as my commitment to you that I will savor the time with a grateful heart and eager mind.
Peace, Pastor Gordon
Sabbatical
Gordon Wiersma, July 2007
if time is gift
and not a given,
then how much missed
or left unopened?
if each tick
is not to be assumed
but constant reminder
of the unlikeliness of being,
then what is it
to hear the space of time?
if life is full of those
for whom the moment, ever,
is a prison –
a nightmare awakening out of time
and into inevitability –
then how can
such extravagance
of hours
honor these?
Breathing, deep into my lungs, filling;
savoring a blue berry, just picked;
feeling, fearing, but not afraid;
noticing a turkey and its septuplets noticing me;
tending to what is quiet and real;
not squashing the spider;
hoping, grieving, thanking, daring to love;
listening to the rushing wind and plodding sun
and persistent bird and laughing voice;
reading the story around me and
catching its familiar plot;
breathing, deep beyond my lungs, overflowing.
if time is gift
then mine
the two hands of choice and fate
to open this;
only praying
with such being that the
the arc of time
bends toward a moment
for all.