Dear Laughing, Lovable, Lively, Loving and Loquacious Lutherans!
We are on sabbatical! Some of us have been there since Day One and others are getting there as the days heading toward August 31 go by. I wanted to share with you a poem by Wendell Berry entitled “Sabbath.”
The dark around us, come,
Let us meet here together,
Members one of another,
Here in our holy room,
Here on our little floor,
Here in the daylit sky,
Rejoicing mind and eye,
Rejoining known and knower,
Light, leaf, foot, hand, and wing,
Such order as we know,
One household, high and low,
And all the earth shall sing.
Now Berry is describing the Sabbath day, the seventh day of each week, but he could as well be singing about the sabbatical year, the seventh year of rejoicing. I hope you are receiving your sabbatical as a gift given directly to you by God for your joy. If you are finding your sabbatical to be burdensome and demanding, STOP! How could anything which is a gift to you from God be anything but joyful! Live your sabbatical joyfully! GO!
Receiving this gift can be difficult. “I don’t really deserve it. I need to do something.” But God is giving you this gift which only needs to be received. If you are having trouble receiving the gift or want to celebrate what you are receiving, please stop by. I am your sabbatical pastor! GREG MARSHALL
Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
