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Coming and Going"Be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well." - Matthew 9:22 "Our solitude takes us from busyness deep into the heart of God, where we find our true home." - Elizabeth Canham Dear Friends: The above scripture quote is one of hundreds carved into the paving stones of the "Faith Walk" at the Rancho Capistrano Retreat and Conference Center. Rancho Capistrano was one of six that I visited during phase one (the May phase) of my sabbatical. Four of the six locations are places that would work well for day use or overnight groups from PB UMC. I am excited to have discovered these resources. The above statement about solitude being the road to the heart of God is from a book called A Table of Delight: Feasting with God in the Wilderness. The statement sums up one of they key motivations of my sabbatical: to have time alone to renew my sense of God's presence. Books are a great delight to me, as well as a source of spiritual insight, and I was thrilled to be able to immerse myself in a dozen books during the month. I was fascinated by Reza Aslan's No god but God (an introduction and overview of Islamic belief, history, and current events), entertained and provoked by Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star, and charmed by Strega Nona Takes A Vacation (a Tomie dePaola children's book about the joys and risks of vacation). Now that I am back on the job for a short time, and preparing for phase two of the sabbatical, I want to assure you that from the send-off concert at the beginning to the visit to Mission San Luis Rey on the last day of May, it has so far been a rich and wonderful experience. The Creativity Workshop I attended in New York City provided me with some great writing and drawing exercises that can be used by individuals or groups to move the creative process along. The museum and theater experiences I had in New York fed my soul, as did the opportunities to eat good food with friends and to visit and reflect at the site where the World Trade Center once stood. It was eye-opening to worship at different churches, and enjoyable to have a little more time than usual to just be at home. Truth be told, I am not very good at holding still, so one day I went to the zoo and took lessons from some of the animals in daytime sleeping. I visited Cabrillo Monument on a foggy day and tried to walk slowly. I made myself take a field trip to my own back yard each day to see what new flowers had come along to surprise me. (Of course I pruned and weeded, too, but my goal was to keep the focus on appreciation.) In a process that took several days, I pondered, selected, and put up pictures on the wall of the remodeled kitchen. As a further strategy for convincing myself that I was living a slower-paced life, at least for a month, I actually got out a needle and thread and re-attached a button to a favorite piece of clothing. As I prepare now for phase two of the sabbatical, in which I will travel out of country and far from all that is familiar and comfortable, I offer the following thoughts from Gary Schmidt and Susan Felch, who have compiled a book called Summer: A Spiritual Biography of the Season. Perhaps it will provide some suggestions to you about how you will choose to spend the next few weeks. "Time in the summer does not seem to move; instead, time collects, or perhaps it might be better said to pool. One of the spiritual lessons of summer is just that: to allow time to pool. To halt in our headlong rush. To be fully in a particular time. To stop long enough to see what lies around us, rather than to be always merely glimpsing." May you find your way to the heart of God. Happy summer! Pastor April |
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