Let there be light

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was waste and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.  And God said, "Let there be light."  And there was light.  Genesis 1.1-3

It's Easter Sunday.  I just got cleaned up; I am dressed, sitting here watching every second tick off the clock before I can get in the car and go to my last day of work.  I am excited about it being Easter, but oddly enough I have this concurrent empty feeling.

Of course by "last day of work" I mean, the last day before I go on sabbatical.  I'll be back in a few months.

It's hard to describe what I'm feeling today.  It's something like when you finish your last day of work before retirement.  In the back of the mind your thinking, "I've done this for so long; What am I going to do when I wake up Monday morning?"

We live our lives in patterns, and we become very accustomed to those patterns.  It's disruptive when the pattern we've lived for so many years is coming to an end.  Or better stated, it's disruptive when we come to a new beginning. The change leaves me feeling somewhat empty and curious about what to expect in these next days.

Even though I have a plan for my sabbatical, I don't know how that plan will unfold. And I know it's not like the regular pattern that I've practiced for the last ten years.  Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and the long Green Season is the Christian calendar; it's the pattern I've followed for these many years.

And Sunday to Sunday I prepare my thoughts and explore modern writings, news articles, ancient texts only to produce a sermon that I often feel is inadequate to represent God's desires for his people.

This pattern is peppered with the pastoral visits and phone calls, and meetings; people popping in to chat.  Even the expected disruptions are part of the pattern.  And somewhere we integrate preparations for a discipleship class or discussion on congregational development and phone calls about the sick and dying, all needing a sense of God's presence.

Please don't take this as a complaint; these are just the daily occurrences of ministry.  This is what I'm called to do and have been gifted to do.  And I am privileged to be a part of people's lives in this way.  But I can tell that recently I haven't been doing these things as well as I would like.  It's because I need to lay it all down.

And that's what I'll be doing tomorrow; I'm laying all this down.  That's why I feel the emptiness. What will replace these things that have left this void?  What replaces the anxiety of preparing a sermon?  What will I replace the feeling of meeting the challenge to lead and instruct God's people?

Do the thoughts and words that I put down on paper comfort or afflict people, spur them on to trust the unseen or change that which needs changing?  This is my greatest burden, which I am both glad and embarrassed to lay down.  I'm glad because it is spiritually and emotionally exhausting. Embarrassed because this is what priests do and I feel the pressure of needing to be stronger for my people.

In the regular pattern's place I will have filled the first week with empty days.  But in another week I'll begin the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile trek across the northern region of Spain.  Those days will be filled with physical exertion and the daily hours of prayer.  The days will also be filled with picture taking, meeting new people, and writing.  I'll have quiet isolation but fellow pilgrims along the way will fill necessary companionship.

Still, even with this plan, I can't help but feel the void.  When I consider all my friends in my parish family,  many of whom are retirees, I wonder if this is something that you feel or have felt in your own lives.  How did you feel when the daily patterns of life changed?   Did you wonder what the future post-career pattern would become?  Was there a void?

Of course this isn't exactly the same thing.  I am returning. But I'm going to return changed somehow.  And I don't know what the new me will look like.

No matter the questions, I am encouraged that your presence in the church means you found some answers to your changes and transitions.  And that encourages me that I too will find answers to questions as I start my journey.

I'm Looking into that obscure void in hopeful expectations of light.