Sabbatical: the First Week

And a great week it has been! The highlight certainly was Will Parker's graduation from Brazoswood High School on Saturday, May 31. We were delighted to be joined for the festivities by my brother and his wife from Houston (Kevin & Renee) and by Will's godfather from Fort Worth, Bishop Sam Hulsey. The next day, Liz, Caleb, Bishop Hulsey and I drove up to Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Houston for their 12:30 p.m. Jazz Eucharist...a wonderful treat, though I did find myself thinking about and praying for you all at St. Timothy's as you worshiped with Margaret Quill. At Trinity Church we ran into Carol Barnwell, the Editor of the Texas Episcoplian, and walked with her to the funky Tacos a Go-Go for lunch. Bishop Hulsey then headed for the airport and Liz and I took Caleb to Jazz Camp at Camp Allen. A pretty jazzy day, that.

(By the way, if you're wondering why I dressed down so much for graduation in the photo above, just ask Will!)

This week has been devoted to decompressing from Graduation and from nearly 20 years of active ministry, i.e., taking it easy, dabbling in yard work and housework, reading, paying bills and the like. I had to give up nearly an entire day to fixing our home e-mail and spent nearly half a day investigating and ordering laptops computers for Liz and me. These will be especially helpful for our sabbatical work. On Wednesday, we packed Ben off for a trip with a friend and his mom to Philadelphia to look at colleges in the Northeast. Today (Saturday, June 7) Liz and Caleb will accompany Will to Camp Allen, where he will work as a Resident Cabin Counselor for the next two weeks. Caleb begins his camp on Sunday and Liz and I will spend the week there as chaplains, staying in one of the lakeside cabins with Ben. I'm staying behind in Lake Jackson so as to be here when Ben returns Sunday evening from Philly. Then on Monday the two of us will drive up.

Our intent is to post a report on this blog about once a week, so that you all can keep up with us a bit. Since we don't anticipate having internet access at Camp Allen, our next entry probably won't appear until the week of June 15.

For my sabbatical topic, Poetry as a Pathway for Spiritual Growth in the Congregation, I've just started reading The Poetic Imagination: An Anglican Spiritual Tradition. The author, L. William Countryman, the New Testament professor at our seminary in Berkeley, California, purports that English lyric poetry has proved to be a particularly suitable medium for communicating the genius of Anglicanism. A promising book, so far.

So, all in all, this week has been a gentle and fitting initiation into the sabbatical. Hoping and praying that the people of St. Timothy's have also made a good beginning!

~ Andy