A Preaching Sabbatical

I am not scheduled to preach until the Fall.
I have been on sabbatical from the congregation in which I volunteer to support the paid staff for five months. I have been (and will be again) a scholar-in-residence at another congregation. I preached twice there.
I have been back to my own congregation to visit and even said one special Mass. I also preached one pre-negotiated sermon for a special commemoration. And I have preached a sermon on the road. All of this marks a great difference from my usual practice of preaching every month, sometimes as many as three times a month. And now an even greater change, a true sabbatical from preaching - more than three months.
And I have to admit I am finding it hard to contemplate. I am already grieving it. What shall I do? Shall I blog the sermons I would have preached? That doesn't feel the same. How will my sabbatical from preaching enrich my ministry of preaching? I have no idea. With all of my sabbatical plans, this is one thing for which I did not plan.

Writing Through...

I'm writing my next book. It's the one that I feel I was born to write. All of my teaching and preaching have come out of this unwritten book - or perhaps I write another page each time I teach or preach. Sometimes it feels to big. How can I get it all down in the time I have allotted? My sabbatical is ticking away!
As of today I have 26 pages of introduction, 99 pages of text, 9 pages of topics/subjects - I just got an idea, I'll list each subject as a cloud to shorten the table of contents, and a couple of pages of glossary. I am clearly no slacker. I have been at this full time since January plus three weeks last summer.
But it still feels like it is too big and much too much! I have never missed a publishing deadline, but this feels different. My last book was rather savagely edited by my dissertation editor so it was already vetted when I submitted it. I've written countless essays, articles and chapters - yet this feels different. I keep telling myself that this book is a collection of essays, articles and chapters. But I still feel overwhelmed at times.
The project is becoming something that I did not envision and I fear losing control. I like - I love - the project that I first envisioned. It has already gone through one major change which I received as refiner's fire. Is it - am I - flexible enough to endure more change? What if the book now writing itself is not the one I thought I was writing? (And not exactly the one I promised my publisher?)

This is my generative gift. I don't have children and will never give birth. This is the thing I bring forth from myself and see taking on a life of its own and it is frightening and exhilarating. This is no mere writer's block!

A Working Sabbatical

Is a working sabbatical an oxymoron? Am I out of my mind for agreeing to do anything including preaching which I love and writing a book that is practically writing itself? Right now I don't want to do anything but sleep and eat. And I need to exercise. Don't get me wrong, I have been resting and engaging in copious amounts of self care. I have been having lovely comforting, soothing prayer time. I'm even watching lots of tv. But right now I am exhausted. Weary. And I don't know why. And I'm getting a good night's sleep every night. Now I'm just breathing. One breath at a time. And then another...

Luxury of Time

There is something luxurious about having the time to do exactly what I want. Work, vocation and labor can be so all-consuming that rest and leisure seem the exception and not the rule. I think the "Protestant work-ethic" has been twisted; living to work and working to live.
I am no dilettante. I need to work to survive. And I need to fulfill my vocation to thrive. Yet I'm discovering that time is a more abundant resource than I ever imagined, now that I have time to take time to take stock of my life and vocation.
This is what I have learned from forty days and forty nights of being on sabbatical.

A Year of Sabbath

Update:
I cannot do the things on my list! My list is too long. I can't exercise because of the snow. I can neither drive to the gym nor walk in my neighborhood. Even if I had enough room on the floors of my furniture-cluttered home I can never focus long enough to work out at home. Videos and DVDs don't help.
My fantasy about beginning each day in prayer and meditation and lectio divina is just that, a fantasy. That's not how my spiritual praxis works. And I'm apparently too old to change. I am in spiritual direction and that is a blessed light in the darkness.
I have organized for a sum total of thirty minutes in the last two weeks and there is the one piece of mail I opened today.
I am writing. Almost every day. And I love it. I am blogging more and I am making real, good progress on my next book.
This is not the sabbatical I imagined. It is the sabbatical I am having. And I am loving it. I will not burden myself with unrealistic expectations. 
New list:
Breathe
Write
Eat 
Sleep
Play
Pray in my own way
Do what I can with my files
Don't set myself up to fail
And don't worry about what I can't (or don't want to do).

Update:
I have learned from the first few days of my sabbatical at home that it is really hard to be on sabbatical at home. The phone keeps ringing; there is so much to be done. My modest to-do list seems impossibly long -
Pray
Exercise
Organize
Write
An hour a day for each would still give me plenty time to deal with all of the things that keep cropping up and REST!
Apparently, I have to learn how to be on sabbatical. This is a praxis practice. I learn by doing.

This is a year of sabbath for me. The year began with my waking and inhaling my first restful breath in a holy place. I left for retreat the night before so that I could live fully into my sabbatical. I wanted to get away. And then it dawned on me with the dawn. Somewhere between sleeping and waking, inhaling and exhaling I discerned that my sabbatical is not from my vocation but it is for my vocation. I am ready, eager for this journey. And it has begun...

[I imagine I will return to this post, update and repost it as I journey through this year.]