Some Final Thoughts on my Sabbatical 2023 – and then let’s live some of this out! (Part One)

Here my final reflections on that amazing time on sabbatical in 2023. They are in three parts because they were not brief.

I want to start by again saying how much in need I was for this. Covid was hard on many people, and it was hard on clergy. We had to learn how use online technology, how to pivot, and how to care for people while not meeting them. There was a constant need to innovate, when really, we live for routine and predictability. And here in Aotearoa we had it pretty easy. We were much more open and without Covid than many other parts of the world. But the threat was there, the fear. And when we came back to in person church that had its own stresses, especially with vaccine passes and how to manage those. And our attendance patterns had changed, and it felt like we had taken a few steps backwards. It just felt harder. So many of us were exhausted at the end. It is sad that our church leadership paid so little attention to this. We were expected to keep on going. Along with the health issues and the finishing my time as Minister General I was well in need to this break. I finished as well as I did, feeling as positive as I did because of that break. And I was still stressed and exhausted. I have spent a lot of time asleep since retiring.

And since I have started this, I have been amazed how long it has taken me to sort all my photos and to write about each day. I had hoped to do one day each day. At times it felt like one day each week. And because I have put this time into it all I want to re-read what I wrote and offer these final reflections. Again, these are mostly for me but join me if you want. 

I was so grateful that the timing allowed me to spend time with Rebekah while she was struggling so much with her dream time in London being a bit shit. I so enjoyed spending that time with her and learnt a bit about not offering advice and just being there for her. A tough thing for a caring dad I have to say. The timing felt like a God moment really and was life-giving for both of us. My sharpest memory of that whole time away was Rebekah’s look of sheer joy when Bonnie walked into her shop when she arrived a month after me. The power of mums!

My first week away was kind of organised, but also with enough free time for me to find my feet and read my book on pilgrimage. And that book helped me reframe the first 8 weeks from holiday and then serious stuff to all pilgrimage. And in the midst of that finding my delightful slip on Skechers walking shoes. Now I am a retired man these are my go-to shoes. They bring me joy. And I did so much walking in them – over 700km.

A big highlight was going to a game at Anfield and being in the stadium for "You’ll Never Walk Alone!" I have a wee desire to go back, without bag, and do it all over again, this time in the Kop! Or at least not so way up high with all the other visitors.

The gift of the time on trains, and my spare day in London that allowed me to finish up some of the TSSF stuff I needed to do, and to read "Jerusalem Bound: How to Be a Pilgrim in the Holy Land" by Rev Dr Rodney Aist, the course director at St. Georges. As I read this, I was struck by some of the themes he offered and how they applied to the whole time away, especially those first 8 weeks. He invites us to pay attention to divine calling, sacred time, place and people, and re-enacting the sacred stories. Part of entering sacred time is to slow down and let go. As I read those now, they also seem right for entering retirement too. Just as my time up north and in Cornwall became a time to slow down and let go, so has the last year been for me. The invitations are just as poignant for me now as they were for when I was preparing to go to Palestine-Israel. The time of sacred pilgrimage was not just while I was away but has continued since I came home and for the last year. So then how do I hold divine calling, sacred time, place and people, and re-enacting the sacred stories moving forward. I wrote “I was invited instead to learn to breathe and to be with the people I was with, to open myself to the places I was in and what I was experiencing, and to shake off all that called me back to the stress I had left behind, and the stress of what lay ahead.” Rodney continues to invite me to let go of the stress and to embrace all that might be - to saunter with purpose and perseverance, with a sense of adventure, imagination, and thoughtful deliberation. This is a time to be open and to use the time to slow down and take the moments as they were offered. It is about paying attention to place, and people. One of the great gifts of this time was the people I shared that time with, like Rebekah, Jacky, Helen and Dave, and Caroline,

Even now I am somewhat bemused by my almost complete lack of planning for my week and a half in Cornwall. I had a car and somewhere to stay on the first night. And I had somewhere to be after a week and a half – Hillfield Friary. But I have no idea why I did not plan anything while I had the free day in London. Be better organised in future John! The stress was huge on occasions. A vague plan and places to stay would have been a great idea. I must remember to do better in future.

But an outcome of this was the life lessons I learnt – lessons I need to remember and not keep needing to re-learn.

I learnt:

• I do not trust signs and maybe should try trusting them. The people who put up signs for the parking and other things probably know where things are more than me.
• Be careful how you put parking tickets on your dashboard.
• Google maps are lagging, so if it says you should turn in 100m on the open road, that usually means now. 40m in built up areas.
• I need quiet to concentrate. The means turning off books or music when I need to pay attention.
• Read all the material or emails that I am sent. Do not assume I know what it will say. It might have more detailed photos and instructions. It might have really useful information about other things like visas. I am still rubbish at this one.
• Be way more observant. If stressed breathe. Don't just flip out. Go back. Re-read. Be even more careful and observant if at all possible.

One of the things I really enjoyed about Cornwall was the time spent in places like the Eden Project, Bodmin Moor, Luxulyan Valley and even Tintagel, places that allowed me to be in God’s creation, to be reminded of and to be grateful for our place in creation, and to hear the invitation to live in ways that make a difference. The idea of a pollinating garden still bubbles away. On some of those days I found hope in the face of so many leaders inaction and sometimes disbelief of the emergencies of pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change. Holding hope is important.

And in many of those places as I sauntered with purposed. In some I had the sense of standing in other people’s lives. The ordinary people whose names are lost to history. We know the "important" people. But those people whose dwellings and places of work I photographed are gone. But are not any less important. As the people of today are no less important. In others like Stannon Stone Circle I had the sense that I was joining multiple generations of pilgrims who had come to these wahi tapu. I was alone, but I was accompanied by all those who had gone before. And I joined them for that time, like them making sense of my life, letting go, and welcoming what might be. I’m still in that mode.

In fact, I realise as I re-read my blogging how important the whole pilgrimage themes of: divine calling, sacred time, place and people, and re-enacting the sacred stories, and to saunter with purpose and perseverance, with a sense of adventure, imagination and thoughtful deliberation, were and are. And that allowed me to be open to the gifts of places like Charlestown and Falmouth. Even so the call of the tourist is still strong and occasionally I have regret at places not explored. And yet I am so grateful for the time I had as a pilgrim in Cornwall and would go back if I had the time and the money. It felt way more Celtic than English and is just soaked with old old history.