Sabbatical Reports 2008
Rosalind Brown
My sabbatical plans were led by a request for a book on preaching which I knew I could not write without time away from regular work. Other hopes included rejuvenated creativity in hymn writing and embroidery.
The book dominated things more than I’d anticipated and at times felt a pressure, but I enjoyed the chance to examine and rethink things I took for granted or had never really considered: rhetoric’s role in preaching, how I work with scripture, creativity and imagination, the historical development of preaching, my own preparation process. As a result, I am being more intentional about some things. Because I was so immersed in prose words, the hoped-for creativity with poetry and embroidery did not happen but a longstanding project on Durham hymns moved towards completion. So there is an element of regret about things not achieved, but life includes letting plans go.
The times away were refreshing. A fascinating visit to Egypt left us templed- and pyramided-out. The high spot in every sense was climbing Mount Sinai, closely followed by the Coptic heritage, and the unforgettable excitement of a woman working in the icon shop at Aswan Orthodox Cathedral that there could possibly be a female priest. A retreat was coloured by news from a close friend from undergrad days telling me she was dying. Her death, followed days later by that of another woman of my age I had visited for a couple of years, made me realise the privilege of returning from sabbatical and anticipating future ministry: I cannot take life for granted. Would I have any regrets about things left undone were I to die now?
Each Sunday I worshipped in a different church in Durham. I was particularly paying attention to the preaching but was glad to get to know several churches in Durham Churches Together. I was, however, happy to slot back into the rhythm of cathedral worship and to experience afresh the sustenance of praying daily with colleagues in a building soaked in prayer.
It is easy to be driven by deadlines and to measure achievement by meeting them. Sabbatical forces another approach, so I resist the temptation to measure its worth by the fact that there is nearly a book at the end of it. The value has been in the change of pace, freedom to do things spontaneously (the garden benefited from this), the opportunities to stand back and look afresh at various things – preaching and ministry in general but also friendships past and present, my priorities for the future which I was reminded by the deaths is all sheer gift – as well as to marvel at our heritage, from Egyptian tomb paintings to Coptic icons, hymns written in past centuries in Durham to twentieth century novels, the Border monasteries to more recent churches in Durham.
I am grateful to the Chapter and the Diocese for the opportunity to take the sabbatical. I will be as intrigued as anyone to see what further fruit comes from it.
Meg Gilley
My sabbatical was planned and executed in haste, to take advantage of the position I found myself in when St Mark’s closed and my work in Stockton had effectively come to an end. I had three aims:
The first was to reflect theologically on the closing of St Mark’s and to write a book about it. During the sabbatical I wrote around 38,000 words, around two-thirds of the book, most of which was telling the story of what happened. Then I got to the point where I needed to do a lot of reading before making progress with writing, as I needed to set the events at St Mark’s in a wider context. I hope to have the first full draft of the book completed by the end of April 2009.
I really enjoyed the writing. It was painful to work through again what had happened at St Mark’s, but it was worth it. It is a story that has something to say about the wider church, given the pressures we all know about.
The second aim of the sabbatical was to look at religious art. I had thought that Sheridan and I might go abroad, perhaps to Siena, for a week. As Sheridan taught a course on religious art and architecture when he taught at Durham University, this would give me a personal tutor. In the end, we felt we couldn’t afford that, so I decided to go to exhibitions and galleries in Britain. This was a good decision, because there were several special exhibitions of religious art or with religious content that autumn. I went to:
• the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy in London – twice – absolutely superb
• the Holman Hunt exhibition in Manchester,
• an exhibition about illustrating the bible at the Bowes Museum (which wasn’t very good)
• the Stanley Spencer exhibition in Newcastle
• the National Gallery, looking at the early paintings
• the Wallace Collection, London
• the Courtauld Institute, London
• Kelvingrove Gallery, Glasgow – an excellent gallery
• St Mungo’s Gallery of Religious Life and Art, Glasgow
• Tullie House, Carlisle – they have a room of pre-raphaelites
• Leeds City Gallery
• York City Art Gallery
• The Lady Lever Gallery, Port Sunlight – more pre-raphaelites
• The Walker Gallery, Liverpool – a wonderful gallery
I began this phase of the sabbatical by attending the Scott Holland lectures in London, to hear Neil McGregor. He gave three lectures on religious art during that day.
Let me show you one image of the many hundreds I saw. Ford Madox Brown’s picture, “Cromwell on his Farm, St Ives 1630” is at the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight. You can see this at http://tinyurl.com/cyjqqp.
The picture shows a pensive Cromwell sitting on his horse, holding a prayerbook and reflecting on what he has been reading. Round the frame is a quotation from Psalm 89, so presumably this is what Cromwell himself is reading: “Lord, how long wilt thou hide thyself, for ever – and shall thy wrath burn like fire?” and “I did endeavour to discharge the duty of an honest man.” Cromwell will go from here to lead the revolution. He is a man reflecting on his vocation and assenting to his destiny. He is looking into the future. He holds an oak sapling, a symbol of his moral strength, and the bonfire on the ground beside him is a symbol of wrath against the royalists.
Though I don’t care for Cromwell’s politics or his religion, this picture appealed to me because it is an image of a man in transition, a man who is hearing God’s call and responding to it. This is a picture I can relate to at the moment as I pray about and look for my way ahead.
The third aim of the sabbatical was to do some further reading and learning about dreamwork, which is one of my passions. Reflecting on dreams can be a useful tool in personal and spiritual development. However, I didn’t achieve this aim at all, apart from recording such dreams as I could remember. This is the danger when you plan too much for a sabbatical.
Three months on from the sabbatical, what have I gained personally and professionally? I was greatly refreshed by going to exhibitions and looking at art and I was much stimulated by that and by the writing and the reading that accompanied the writing. I have a deeper understanding of some of the issues facing the church, and this has informed and shaped me ready for a new phase of ministry.
Ian Jagger
For me, being ordained has involved two overlapping circles: there is me before God, trying to respond to his call and live my life with him, and there is the job. Fortunately, most of the time they have a lot in common, but this sabbatical was definitely to be about the first, not the second. After a pre-sabbatical conversation with Stephen Cherry I hit on the image of ‘sabbath’ which lies behind ‘sabbatical’, and I found it very helpful to have the image to keep reminding me of what this time was for. To delight in God on his day (even if it is a day of three months) was a very health-giving experience.
As it is for many people, my normal working life is dominated by the need to deliver on objectives, to resolve problems and to meet the (often conflicting) expectations of many others. I intended this sabbatical to have a different character. I intended to spend time in a different way, to be myself in ways which often get squeezed out, and to look forward.
I also wanted to read and think theologically in an open-ended, exploratory way; to write an essay without a given title, or whose title was the simple question, ‘Lord, show me what is important’. This Sabbath attentiveness led me into three areas, Creation, Trinity and the Last Things. Some days I wrote pages and pages in the process of teasing out what I think and believe about these things. Other days were more contemplative. On others I tried to get my brain round quantum and chaos theory, and got excited by fresh connections. I want to pursue these themes in future reading. Reality looks just a little different whenever I ‘see’ the Trinity, which I do more often and more easily. So far.
Whilst I did not want hymn-writing to become a sabbatical job, to be achieved and ticked off, I did want to see where I am on this, as something which had been part of my Portsmouth past, but not my present. Having identified ‘death’ as an area needing modern hymns I got into a long and continuing engagement with Bishop Tom’s latest book on this, Surprised by Hope. What do I/we believe happens when we die (which might be today)? I wonder if we might be more confident and effective in mission if we were clearer on this question. And there are other hymns half-completed or yet to be started, but I am searching for a poetic way of seeing and want to resist the versifying of doctrine.
Attending to those bits of my life which get squeezed out meant making space for boats and the sea, and thinking about the pathway towards retirement, which is a long way off but needs some planning. I took this opportunity to get my International Certificate of Competence to handle boats up to 20metres in Europe, via an RYA powerboat course. It was great fun as well as a real challenge to acquire skills and be tested beyond my comfort zones, and it lays a foundation to build on in coming years. The sea challenges the securities and complacencies of a sedentary life and startles with the raw power, risk and beauty of creation.
I am also very aware how often work takes me away from family, so another aim was good sabbath time spent with those God has given me to delight in. Aidan was at the point of changing schools and entering his teens, and this was part of the reason to choose this moment. We took him on a purposeful journey to Pisa, Rome, Pompeii, Venice and Barcelona. It was a deposit of enjoyment and rapport for all of us (I hope). There are now regular times of day and week when we spend time together.
As renewal the sabbatical worked very well. I was attending to what is important. I have not yet managed to incorporate the experience into normal life in the ways I had hoped, but the reality and memory of the ‘new life’ is still calling, and I am making adjustments that will get me nearer to living it more often. The sabbatical flies by. I think the mixture of prayer, theology, boats, family travel and writing was good for me, though the ingredients may be different for others. I am revived rather than different, after it, and even more aware that those two over-lapping circles do not entirely overlap, but that the life of the second comes from the first.