This is my last written Rambling for a while. Have no fear, there will be guest ramblers each week in my absence. I am aware that I will miss this, too, during my sabbatical. It’s a practice I began when I came to Christ Church eight years ago. It seemed a good idea at a time; a way to share a bit about me and how I think with a congregation that was still healing from a time of division and conflict. I knew that there was a natural concern about the trust level between a congregation and its rector. Rambling gave me a format to talk to the congregation, to teach, and to reflect, even beyond the pulpit. It went so well that what may have been a temporary practice became a habit.
I have not rambled every single week, but I’ve only missed a handful each year. The last year has seen the most misses because we shifted our whole office to taking Mondays off, which gives me one whole day less each week before Julie’s deadline to get this and everything else done. Some weeks it catches up with me. I wish I could say that all my Ramblings were well crafted, closely edited, and thoroughly planned, but I can’t. Some germinate and grow over days, or even weeks, as I think about an idea. Others are triggered by current events, as I process what’s going on in the world in real time, trying to bring our faith to bear. And yes, sometimes, a Rambling comes together in less than an hour because the deadline is looming. I think my record is twenty-two minutes on a Rambling.
There have been Ramblings that are very personal and emotional. Some are just fun, with as much wryness as I can manage to squeeze in. Some “go viral” within our local community, like the piece I wrote after our first dog died, or after Scarlette was lost on Jekyll. Some have been controversial, which is just the way of prophetic leadership sometimes. In those cases, I always shared a finished Rambling with others ahead of time. I’ve never published a Rambling that I knew would be challenging to some without first sharing it with the Wardens, the key being when I knew it would be challenging. I’ve had some great conversations with folks as a result of some of my Ramblings, which I really appreciate. Some have been too long, but none have been too short! Just remember, as Mark Twain has been credited with saying (excluding my edit): “I didn’t have time to write you a short [Rambling], so I wrote you a long one.”
More often than not, just like sermons, the Ramblings represent an interior dialogue. A public journal of sorts. It is said – I have said it – that preachers often preach to themselves; that’s even more true with the Ramblings. The best part of rambling is that it forces me to slow down and spend time thinking and praying about something. When I rush around, I may not take the time to really process an experience, whereas, when I have to try to describe it to someone else, or bring God to bear on a matter, it often brings clarity. If not clarity, then at least depth. My mentor jokes with me sometimes about what items in the news or on social media will become a Rambling. We both know I don’t often know what I think about something until I ramble about it.
The theme for my sabbatical, which begins in just two more days, was built around the Rambling. A time to stop rushing around and just process…well, me. To bring God to bear on me. To see what I think and feel about all that, and regain some balance, some clarity, and deepen my connections, chiefly with God and my family. I won’t know what it will be like until it’s happening. I don’t know what I will learn until I learn it. I begin this time away from the parish like I begin when I sit in front of a blank page: ready for whatever the Spirit moves in me to pour forth. I don’t know what it will be, but I know it will come.
People have asked me if I will write during my sabbatical. The answer is yes. I have a journal and everything ready to go, although the journal says “Sabbatical 2020” on the leather cover. That’s what happens when we make plans! I will probably only use the journal for thoughts and bulleted reflections. I know I will need my laptop to really write. My writing hand has never done well with anything over a few lines; if I did journal, I wouldn’t be able to read half of it later. So yes, I’ll be writing. No, I won’t be sending any of it back to the parish between now and August. Regardless, I guarantee that you’ll end up hearing some of it in future Ramblings and sermons.
Every Rambling changes me in some way, because of the process itself. Each exploration of a topic is an intervention of some sort, and I can never go back to who I was and what I thought before I had a chance to think something new. The same will be true in August. I won’t be the same after this time away. I’ll still be me, but I’ll probably have a slightly different view of things, new energies, and a renewed sense of where my ministry is headed in this community. That’s not a warning, just a reality. I won’t come back and try to make a whole bunch of changes in me or the parish; I’ve already promised the staff that won’t happen! But, Ramblings take me from one place and lead me somewhere else, and that journey will be similar this summer, as I am led from place to place for a time, until I get home again. As I said on Sunday, I’ll be ready to come home.
Thank you again, Christ Church, for the gracious gift of this time away for my family and me. I am so grateful to the Lilly-funded Clergy Renewal Program that is funding this sabbatical leave, to our staff and Vestry who have been so supportive and will keep Christ Church humming along in my absence, and to God, who continues to call me to this work every day. It is God who makes my heart sing on the joyous days of ministry, and God who carries me along when I’m broken and hurting. I have much to be grateful for, thanks be to God. I hope we all have an awareness of the same in our own lives. God be with you until we see each other again.
Tom+
O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel; surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger; and bring them in safety to their journey's end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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