Calvin and Hobbs wisdom to begin the new year; what better way?
________________________________________________________________________________
I connected to the implication of this bloggers post title: Day 1 of 365.
It read to me like a determination to pay attention to,
be present in,
each day for the year 2015. It won’t happen perfectly, and perhaps not even every day,
but it’s a determination that resonates with me.
Not a resolution-if I frame it in this way I will fail-but determination I can do.
______________________________________________________________________
2014 was a tumultuous year. Wildly tumultuous year.
So much change, so much doing, so much finishing, so much ambiguity.
I returned stateside 6 November determined to take time out.
A sabbatical.
I knew I must.
There is not any failure of health, great loss or crisis. There’s nothing predicating a necessity to retreat other than my gut.
A spirit-sense of must.
A whole body sense of must.
It’s not a comfortable or common-sensical must.
It’s a deep, undeniable, yet wholly ambiguous must.
____________________________________________________________________________
All practicality would say noway. No way.
This decision turns us into a homeless, possession-less, income-less household.
It’s as close to nothing-ness this girl has ever seen.
And yet,
Must.
___________________________________________________________________________
As Australia taught me, and the conviction to just do it proved out, this would be a blessing,
I take a sabbatical as best I can and in whatever manifestation it forms, for a year.
There’s still EncaustiCamp,
I’m still behind the scenes creating and exploring and experimenting and dreaming.
But don’t look for me in any headlines. On any front page news source. Not even my own wall~
__________________________________________________________________
Dictionary.com gives a great definition of sabbatical:
1. of or pertaining or appropriate to the Sabbath.
3. bringing a period of rest.
5. any extended period of leave from one’s customary work, especially for rest, to acquire new skills or training, etc.
This Jewish, biblical tradition is the root of sabbatical.
Every seventh year is the shimmitah year as declared by God. It was not unlike the Sabbath, seven day, in which God called for a day of rest and worship.
The shimmitah year is designed to rest the earth, let the fields go fallow and for believers to celebrate all that’s been, while looking forward to what will come.
I like to call it a reset.
I take mini resets almost daily; closing my eyes and letting my brain turn off, even for a few minutes,
as a result feeling rejuvenated, ‘reset’, to the day I’m living.
John and I have been able to commit more and more to a Sabbath day each week.
Not necessarily Sunday, because this is often times the day we do more doing than the doing days!
But a day, come where it may, to just be. Our riches conversations and discoveries often come on these days when we’re ‘allowed’ to just listen to each other, the world around us, and come what may of our day.
It’s a weekly reset, rejuvenating us to the week we are living.
Confession: I’m not so good at not doing.
Though I don’t consider this a fault any more; it is the design that is me.
My doing just has to be put to work in the right way. T
he doing must come from the right place, at the right pace, to fulfill its right purpose.
I’ve learned this in my two years in Australia and coming home to sabbatical.
I first read it as ‘not knowing what the heck we’re going to do’. Uncomfortable, uneasy unknowing.
I resisted the certainty I felt in needing to step away from the palette.
I tried to create my own doing.
I went so far as to try to bully my way into a
next I thought I could make my own.
____________________
Humility is a grand teacher.
I’d ignored the proper pace, despite this being a good plan and certainly even, I’m still convinced, part of my purpose.
It takes this kind of failure in our own efforts to make us stop and really see what’s being spoken sometimes.
It certainly did for me.
____________________
In addition to shimmitah being a year of rest and worship, if followers obey this call,
the promise is for bountiful harvest in the year to come.
I’m certain I’ve been saved.
My failure to listen to the call to sabbatical and bullheadedly create busy-work for myself in 2015, and the (thank God!) failure of this bullheaded attempt, saved me to listen to what I needed to hear, and trust, and do.
I am taking a sabbatical year.
A shimmitah year.
It looks crazy.
No one in their right mind would go into a year of rest and not-doing without a home, furniture, car, income.
No one.
But then the must.
It might look like utter foolishness
a Calvin and Hobbs ‘winging it and see what happens’
and in truth, well, it is.
But it’s more.
I’m staying my course.
Beginning long before the risky, edge-jumping-in-faith commitment to two years in Australia
I’ve been one to stand at the edge and take that first step into unknown.
I’m sticking to my strength.
Standing at that edge again, of ‘next’ that is even more unknown.
And trusting
having faith in
a bountiful harvest.
Shimmitah. Sabbatical. Reset.
2015.
Winging it and see what happens.
I’m on it.
I must.
in love.
trish
Related
