On Sabbatical

The most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot.  In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.  (Frederick Buechner) 

I called it “Poems, Prayers and Paintings.”  A sabbatical proposal that I proposed was yes, more than just a riff off the name of my first and favorite record album, “Poems, Prayers and Promises” by John Denver.  It’s the craft of poetry, prayers and painting that has grounded and centered me in God.

I’ve been clear what I’ve wanted to do.

Creativity takes me deep into all I call prayer, all I call God, all that is deeper awareness, presence and mystery.  I want to develop a daily rhythm of writing and painting and see where it might take me.

And I want to continue to learn how to sail.  It’s that “learning to sail” part where the “prayer” part of my sabbatical fits in.  To be creative you have to risk putting yourself out there, to step into challenge and change.  In these coming months I want to continue to explore doing things I’ve never done before or am just learning how to do.  Things that take me right into my growth – which means, yes, right into my fear.  Right there to the edge where all we call “faith” begins.   Learning to sail takes me there.

And so I begin, March 1.  Three months, followed by a month of vacation.  I’ll be back on June 30.

A sabbatical is a tremendous gift of time.  A rare privilege to step away from the everyday into a different way to be.  And no, I couldn’t do it without others “staying home” and providing the support here so I am able to step away.  For that gift, I am grateful beyond words.

A sabbatical means doing somethings differently.  I won’t be writing a blog.  Checking and answering my email at church or my phone messages here.

Wherever you are this spring, what might it be like to imagine “inhabiting time” a bit differently, and not just “waste”, “spend”, “use” or “fill” it?

How might you take seriously being renewed this spring in body, mind and spirit?

What might you do that you have never done before?

What might you create?

How might you make space for “not knowing” so that new ways of knowing may come?

I look forward to being back in touch in July and hearing and sharing what happened this spring in us all,

Peter

Knowing

Not knowing
how to get out
of this sad spin
of grief
I ran
out
to the river
to where
the path
leads
to the water’s
edge.

I stood,
still,
for a long time,
watching.

Rippling waves.

At last,
I looked up.

Saw beyond,
not so far away,
a boat,
the kind I could
handle and sail.

I took it,
as I do most
anything these days,
as a sign,
that what I need
shall be given.

That the path
is going
somewhere
and not
so far away,
a boat
to take me there.

I ran –
home again,
dreamed
that night
of wind.

Peter Ilgenfritz
January 28, 2014