Lessons from Sabbatical - Week 2

Week 2 was about grief. On Wednesday (Ash Wednesday, by some warped coincidence), I learned that a friend and colleague died, and I learned that my next-door neighbour died. And to add insult to injury, my car didn’t die, but it entered the palliative stage of life, which means that I’m also car shopping a year or so earlier than I had hoped. (To be fair, Prezley the Impreza has 290,000km on the odometer so doesn’t owe me anything at this point.)

I did break my church communication sabbath this week, as a couple of colleagues reached out to me to make sure that I had heard about Alison; and then I joined some of them on a video call on Friday night so that we could grieve together.

We, as people who deal professionally with grief, tend not to grieve well ourselves.

 

As Kendall observed, to have a video chat full of ministers and none of us had anything to say, in itself says how profound our grief is.

 

So I don’t know if this post is about “lessons” from sabbatical, but is rather “observations” about grief.

 

I am going to miss Catria. Conversations over the fence. A smile and wave driving past. A knock on my back door saying “I felt like a glass of wine but I didn’t want to drink alone.” And on top of that the most fabulous cat-sitter – Nuru, who usually doesn’t like having anyone other than me in the house used to roll over at her feet and ask for belly rubs.

 

God of Incarnation, hear my prayer; even when I don’t know what my prayer is.

 

 

“From dust you have come,

and to dust you shall return.”