Unexpected Sabbatical
Since I am getting an unexpected sabbatical today, I decided it would be a good time to resurrect the sabbatical blog. I've been wanting to do that for a while, but it has been so long since I wrote. I do want to keep some of that sabbatical rhythm in my life, but it is just so darn hard!
I had all these good intentions when I got back last July: Fridays were going to be writing days, friendships would be resurrected and not neglected, walking and workouts would be priorities in taking care of myself. Hmmmm.... let's see.... how much of that have I done? Try ZIPPO! What happened?
Life happened. Life in ministry anyway. But I also did come to some good realizations too. Although I may not be very good at setting aside those times for writing and working out and friendships, I do manage to do some good downtime on a regular basis. I just need better self-discipline on how I USE that downtime. I do manage to work at home fairly frequently, but again, I need better self-discipline on getting through my lists of tasks on those days too. Anyone with good suggestions on how to do better self-discipline?
We'll see how I do now when summer gets here again. In the meantime, today could be a good test of how productive I can push myself to be. We had one of those overblown "blizzards" that midwest meteorologists are always looking for. And yes, I did give in to the hype and cancel Sunday services for the first time ever in my 15 years as a pastor. How I let that happen, I don't know. Instead of waiting until Sunday morning to decide, I gave in on Saturday evening.
So this morning I woke up to grey skies, about 5 inches of fresh snow, but NO precipitation or blizzard conditions that I could see. And I was kicking myself for being such a wuss. I did feel somewhat better when I drove to church however. My plan was to spend some time in the office answering phone calls about whether worship was on or off, and visiting with any folks who didn't catch the reports on snow closings and showed up at church anyway. But once I got there, I realized it probably was a good thing to cancel. The wonderful city of Milwaukee did their usual good snowplowing on our street. There was a swath plowed right down the middle of the street, barely a car width. If I even had a thought of parking on the street, that was shot immediately from my mind. Navigating the side streets was tough, even with my 4 wheel drive. So I guess I can maybe forgive myself for not having worship this morning - since the building was still pretty unapproachable. The nearly empty parking lot at our neighbor St. Therese validated my decision too.
And I must admit, I'm kind of enjoying the unexpected sabbath day as a true sabbath day. I stopped to pick up a Sunday paper, along with a beverage from the brand new Caribou Coffee near my house, and I am currently learning how much time my cats actually do spend sleeping every day. (How is that possible??)
Let's see if I can keep the writing on this blog current now too. Another challenge of self-discipline.
I had all these good intentions when I got back last July: Fridays were going to be writing days, friendships would be resurrected and not neglected, walking and workouts would be priorities in taking care of myself. Hmmmm.... let's see.... how much of that have I done? Try ZIPPO! What happened?
Life happened. Life in ministry anyway. But I also did come to some good realizations too. Although I may not be very good at setting aside those times for writing and working out and friendships, I do manage to do some good downtime on a regular basis. I just need better self-discipline on how I USE that downtime. I do manage to work at home fairly frequently, but again, I need better self-discipline on getting through my lists of tasks on those days too. Anyone with good suggestions on how to do better self-discipline?
We'll see how I do now when summer gets here again. In the meantime, today could be a good test of how productive I can push myself to be. We had one of those overblown "blizzards" that midwest meteorologists are always looking for. And yes, I did give in to the hype and cancel Sunday services for the first time ever in my 15 years as a pastor. How I let that happen, I don't know. Instead of waiting until Sunday morning to decide, I gave in on Saturday evening.
So this morning I woke up to grey skies, about 5 inches of fresh snow, but NO precipitation or blizzard conditions that I could see. And I was kicking myself for being such a wuss. I did feel somewhat better when I drove to church however. My plan was to spend some time in the office answering phone calls about whether worship was on or off, and visiting with any folks who didn't catch the reports on snow closings and showed up at church anyway. But once I got there, I realized it probably was a good thing to cancel. The wonderful city of Milwaukee did their usual good snowplowing on our street. There was a swath plowed right down the middle of the street, barely a car width. If I even had a thought of parking on the street, that was shot immediately from my mind. Navigating the side streets was tough, even with my 4 wheel drive. So I guess I can maybe forgive myself for not having worship this morning - since the building was still pretty unapproachable. The nearly empty parking lot at our neighbor St. Therese validated my decision too.
And I must admit, I'm kind of enjoying the unexpected sabbath day as a true sabbath day. I stopped to pick up a Sunday paper, along with a beverage from the brand new Caribou Coffee near my house, and I am currently learning how much time my cats actually do spend sleeping every day. (How is that possible??)
Let's see if I can keep the writing on this blog current now too. Another challenge of self-discipline.
posted by Kris at 2/25/2007 12:37:00 PM
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