in which I'm planning a sabbatical, can you help me?
And a very happy 2020 to you too.
In the craziness of the second half of 2019, between major surgery and a life-determining affirmation of my sense of calling to be a priest, and the fact that no-one knows what to call the years 2010-2019 (the tens? the teens?) I sort of forgot that it was actually the end of a decade.
At the start of the last decade, I was living in Germany, not quite depressed but very nearly, trying to take baby steps in a possible career as an academic. By the end of its first year I was gearing up to move to London to take up a temp role in a Christian aid and development organisation. Nine years later, I'm about to move on again, to what is — I guess — my third career, and in September I'll head off out of London to train for ordination (no, I don't know where yet, ask me at Easter). So, for me, the annual round of reflection and resolution felt a bit different this year: I've spent the past two and a half years in a discernment process which has — at times — felt like an endless round of self-reflection and development. It's been helpful and fruitful, but no, I will not be setting self-improvement, development and goals for the year right now, thank you very much. I'm resting.
And I mean fully resting. I finish in my job at the end of March, and I won't start training until September. I'm spending some of that time doing some hefty lifemin and DIY before leaving London, but I'm taking three full months off: June, July and August are going to be a proper sabbatical.
I've been spending some time over the past few months musing on what I want to do with this sabbatical and now — I need some help. I've made some decisions about how I want to decide what I'll do and where I'll go, but I really need some help identifying possible specific options to work with as I build a firmer plan for this time. So, I thought that if I wrote something that described my ballpark (good metaphor? bad metaphor? I can't decide) then maybe some of the wonderful people I'm aquainted with might be able to help me out with some suggestions of things I could look into more.
And so, this is my framework:
I do want to rest: I've been working pretty hard for the past nine years, especially the last three, and I need a break from 9-5 work and commuting. That said, I don't want to be lazy or aimless — I would like to work at or be involved in something, mental, physical, but not full time, and something that's very local to wherever I end up being. I'll come back to at what in a bit, but, as a basic example, I'd be really happy to be somewhere volunteering, but with time to rest / explore and...
Write. I want to write. It's been remarkable (though probably it shouldn't have been) how much I feel like writing since I got my recommendation to train for ordination. Suddenly there's all this mental and emotional energy to work with in, and I feel like I can go beyond instinctual, existential journalling and marshall that into organised writing. I also have the core of an idea for a book, and I want to spend a chunk of this sabbatical getting the blocks of that out of my head and onto digital paper.
I want to travel but not too much. That is, I want to spend a good chunk of time (at least a month) in one or two places. I love travelling and seeing new places, but I would like to get to know a place and that takes time. I'd comfortably spend two months in one place, and one month travelling around from wherever that happens to be. I would also quite like to spend time somewhere I haven't yet, but that's not set in stone.
I would like to not be in a city. I've been in London for nine years, and while I've enjoyed it more than I would ever have expected (I thought I'd last 3-5 years) I'm not a city creature by nature. I grew up rural, and I feel like a part of my calling is to rural places - and so I don't think I want to be in cities much for this sabbatical.
In terms of location... I'm thinking either Europe or North America - but I'm not fully sure why, and I am open to other ideas. That said, there's a few factors in this thinking... I'm aware that this is likely, unless something fully insane happens, to be my last chance as a British person to freely and easily travel and do some work within Europe for a sustained period of time before some kind of visa and similar restrictions come into play. I'm also interested in giving myself experiences and scope to reflect on what's going on in European communities and in British ones at present, so I have that before I start training. Of course, Britain is also influenced by and has similarities with things in North America, perhaps especially the US - and this is especially true of the church - so that spending some time there would be helfpully similar-but-different. I've not spent time really, outside of cities, in the US at all, or in Europe for twenty years, so I'd like to do that. Finally, I also speak English, a bit of Italian (that comes back quite quickly), and a smattering of French and German. I'd happily improve any of those three or pick up some Spanish along the way, but language skills probably wouldn't be my focus.
And finally, the question of on what I would like to spend my time. I've been mulling on this a lot, because I don't have any one particular thing that I definitely definitely want to focus on. I've always been a bit of a generalist and interested in many, many things — but I would like to explore more, or see/experience more, or go into more depth in probably one or two of some of the bundle of things I'm interested in.
These would include (but probably aren't limited to...):
Rural life and communities, including things like land and agriculture, localisation in the face of globalisation, and church and Christian communities in rural areas.
Peacebuilding, mediation, reconciliation. I started adult life as a historian, and I’ve never stopped being interested in how we deal with, remember and live out of the past.
Creativity in worship and creating Christian community and practice, especially things like creative ways of developing liturgy and working with ritual.
That’s essentially where I am at the moment. If you do have ideas or thoughts, or even connections, that might help me come up with some more specific possibilities, please, please let me know.