"I CONFESS"

As I write this blog I sit before a huge, southeast-facing window that reveals a generous deck,  a forest of pine trees, two deer grazing about ten yards from me, and a handful of other Yosemite Park cabins.  The view (one my schedule assumes I'll enjoy for the next 5 days of writing and reflecting) really couldn't be more different than the one I had just hours ago from my 26th floor hotel room at the Hyatt O’Hare in Chicago.  Unique as each location is, though, they have something in common.  Both have found me contemplating sabbatical experiences that have been in some way surprising.  I won't touch on all of those in this blog, but I do want to point to one. 

I single it out not so much because it's arrival came as such a huge shock.  In fact, the surprise would have been for me to have gotten through a three month quarantine from my church family without having been tested by it.  I'm referring to the challenge of doing something wholly unnatural for me:  this sabbatical's awkward, self-imposed "requirement" that during it I have minimal contact (meaning none if at all possible) with the staff and members of MCC.  In other words, my mission to go in pursuit of spiritual and emotional refreshment while insulating myself from some of the people who were so often a source of the very thing I sought.  But even that isn't really the subject of this post.  No, it's not the reality of me missing people that's the surprise here but the intensity of that reality ... an intensity the force of which resulted in me committing one of the greatest of all "sabbatical sins."  I cheated.  I relapsed.  And I need to come clean. 

Here is my confession and, embedded in it, one of the gifts this time away from you all has given to me:

I confess that I so missed our staff that, even though Brenda offered to do it for me, I went in person to the office to get my mail.  Further, though completely unnecessary, I purposefully waited to go until I knew the office would be open and some of our team would be there.

I confess that during that trip to get my mail, I was calculated and fully aware in my decision to "forget" a package that also needed to be brought home.  I did that just so I might have an excuse to come back and see everyone yet another time.

I confess that, no fewer than three times, I went to Costco when I didn't have one stinking thing to buy ... just because I rarely go there without seeing someone from MCC.  (I was 1/3 in my subversive attempts to see you during those trips, by the way.)

I confess that I drove to the church's property when I knew MOPS was meeting and idled my way through the parking lot just for the chance to see some of MCC's precious kids.  And I did see them, some playing tag on the lawn, others holding hands and anxiously looking both ways before crossing the parking lot en route to their cars.  It felt good - like taking in air again right after forcing yourself to break the family record for holding your breath under water.

I confess to having "snuck" into our worship area one night just so I could pretend it was April already and feel a little less distant for a few minutes.  (I know.  I know.  That's just WEIRD!)

And I confess to worshiping with other congregations over the past few weeks, and noticing not so much that God was present there, but that you weren't.

Don't get me wrong.  This focused time of restoration and distance has been, and still is nothing short of MAGNIFICENT!  Brenda and I have had some great time together.  And in a few days our entire family (including Becca's fiancé, Anthony, of course) will gather for 10 days of restful, fun reconnection.  So this isn't a veiled complaint or an implicit statement of the sabbatical's failure.  No, just the opposite.  It's a testimony to it's success.

As expected, this sabbatical has been both a deep blessing and a worthwhile investment.  UNexpected, however, was the force with which it would speak as it reminded me of just how much I've come to depend upon my pastoral colleagues and the people that comprise Marin Covenant Church for spiritual strength, emotional wholeness, and pastoral relevance.

So I guess it's only fitting that I end with one last confession.

I confess that one of the gifts this sabbatical has given to me is the realization that, though there will certainly be times when it doesn't seem like it to you or feel like it to me,  I have somehow become addicted to the MCC community... "warts and all."  And I like this newly realized "dependence" very much.