My four-month sabbatical begins tomorrow. I still have some emails to send, and some notes to write, and a few other things to attend to, but tomorrow I will turn off my email and suspend my Facebook account and will enter into a time of greater quiet for a while. And even though it will be an adjustment, and I will at times be restless and bored, even, I know that I need this intentional sabbath time.

I have a lot of favorite hymns, one that’s on my mind this week, when the President of the United States and several senators encouraged a mob to desecrate our Capitol, causing death and injury, is “God of Grace and God of Glory,” by the minister Harry Emerson Fosdick:

God of grace and God of glory,
on thy people pour thy power;
crown thine ancient church’s story;
bring its bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
for the facing of this hour, for the facing of this hour.

When our daughter was in elementary school, I helped coach her travel soccer team. In the colder months, they would play indoors on Saturday morning, and my custom was to make a big travel mug of coffee before we headed off. One Saturday, after the coffee kicked in, the teenage referee made a couple of questionable calls, and I let him know my unhappiness. The opposing coach looked over at me and told me that the ref was doing the best he could, that this young man had challenges of his own. Of course I felt ashamed—how could I have been so insensitive? And I had the thought, “Maybe I should switch to decaf.”

Wow—it’s been a while since I’ve written here! My only excuse is that the church year started up and things have been kind of busy. Mostly in a good way—we brought our online worship back into the sanctuary and I’ve been pleased with that. It was another thing to figure out, but thanks to a great team of folks, we did it!

It’s been a hot and dry summer around here. Spending more time than usual around home, I’ve watched the grass dry up and die, and done just enough watering to keep other plants alive. Bees have been lining up on the edge of the birdbath, thirsty for a drink. I love a rainy summer day every now and then, and until yesterday, it had been a long time since we’ve had one of those. And we’re fortunate—out west, where things are often dry, wildfires have raged in recent weeks, causing loss of life and property and destroying beautiful places, spreading smoke and making it hard to breathe for those downwind.

I wrote my last post just before heading off for a few days of fishing and camping in northern New Hampshire. That was several weeks ago now, but the memory is staying with me. It was good for my soul to be out in that beautiful country; walking through the woods and standing in moving water, watching the water flow by, “hoping that a trout will rise,” as Norman MacLean put it.

At this time of year, I dream of the open road, of getting out of town, and getting away from the demands of parish ministry for a while. In recent years I’ve been fortunate to make almost annual trips to Yellowstone National Park, where I hike and fish and find plenty of solitude, once you get away from the road.

When the Coronavirus hit, we stopped gathering in our sanctuary, and started offering worship online from our homes. This was an adjustment for everyone. As a former photographer, I was reminded that I am more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. That first week, Sophia and I decided that, even in our less formal settings, we would wear our ministerial robes. It felt right to us to keep some things the same.

On this rainy Sunday afternoon I was happily working on a project in the basement when I got a text from my wire Tracey. It was this meme, based on Neil Diamond’s song “Sweet Caroline”:

I’ve been a casual runner for a long time, and I love how accessible this form of exercise is—you just lace up your shoes and go. There’s a whole world out there you can run in! But over the last couple of years, I started to find that my body, particularly my knees, didn’t love my pounding the pavement. And over the past few months, I’d stopped running at all.

But a couple of days ago I felt the urge to run. To get outdoors, in the fresh air, and stretch my legs and expand my lungs. It went pretty well, and considering the state of things these days, some aches and pains the following day felt like a small price to pay.