On Slowing Down
This May through August my wife Amy and I will be on sabbatical until August. It's an amazing benefit of three months of rest, renew and study plus a month of vacation that our church provides for pastors after their seventh year of ministry. We are looking forward to slowing down, making pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Assisi and Orvieto and parts of England and Scotland and engaging in rhythm of spiritual practices without the normal distractions of everyday life. I have the opportunity to preach while the choir sings in Kiev and Moscow. We are also looking forward to celebrating 25 years of marriage (June 22), 20 years of ordained ministry (April 1) and 50 years of life for both of us in 2010. Understandably there's lots of planning to do in preparation for being gone for an extended period of time. There's the planning of what we're going to do and the planning of what will happen while we're gone, and there's the planning of what we need to do before I leave.