In 1986 I started work with the Urban Core Support Network, a small, informal organization that connected and supported people across Canada working in urban ministry and with homeless people. I was the second of two staff people. Within four months of my arriving, my colleague left on a six-month sabbatical, made possible by his church's continuing education plan. We were working in a difficult and demanding area of ministry and being able to take time off, with pay, to follow our passions and interests was what kept people like us in the job.
Six years later, it was my turn to take a sabbatical, but instead, the funding for our work dried up and I lost my job ... a very different kind of "time off."
In 1996 I started work at Church House, and tried not to look too envious as other colleagues planned and carried out their sabbaticals ... finishing a second degree, pursuing independent study, travelling with partner or parent, learning Spanish or brushing up on the piano, doing photography, pottery, painting. Once again, I waited for my turn to come up, but as time went on, the future of the organization looked very uncertain, and there was some thought that the operation might have to close down by the end of 2002. I wondered more than once whether my previous experience of losing my job instead of going on sabbatical would repeat itself.
In my better moments, I dreamed of all the things I would do if I could take the time off and organize the financing. I would cycle in France or Ireland. I would walk the pilgrimage along El Camino in Spain to Santiago de Compostello. I would visit sacred communities like Iona and Taizé. I would walk the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral. I would go on a 40-day Ignatian retreat. I would deepen my understanding of the work of reconciliation - and visit the Henry Martyn Centre in Hyderabad, India. While I was there, I would find out more about Mahatma Ghandi. And oh yes, I would visit Oxford University and take in some theatre in London.
It was great to dream. But as the possibility became more concrete, the real challenge was to decide what parts of the dream I really wanted and to figure out how to make it happen.
The first challenge was learning that for various reasons I couldn't take my sabbatical during the spring and summer months as I had hoped. And I couldn't be away when the EcoJustice Committee, which I staff, was meeting. And I didn't want to wait for another year for fear that, once again, circumstances would change and a sabbatical would not be possible. So I dropped the pilgrimage idea.
At one point I sought advice from someone who had just completed a very successful sabbatical. It was Barry Jenks, Bishop of British Columbia, who had returned from Ireland, Jerusalem, and Guyana. His advice: plan plan plan, and give yourself lots of lead time to get ready. So I sat down and drew up a proposal and in January I put it before the Church House management team for approval - which they gave. Step one completed. There's lots of lead time, I thought, since I would not leave until November.
My proposal had some of the basic components of my dream, with a few adjustments to accommodate the time of year. I asked for time off between November and February - four months, all we are allowed. I would spend time in the United Kingdom. I would make a retreat. Time and money permitting, I would visit France.
On the advice of my director, I also explored a study program at the Episcopal Divinity School in Boston - Anglican, Global, and Ecumenical Studies. I learned that the program featured a travel seminar that would be going to India and immediately wrote to the registrar to express my interest. So I put that into my proposal too.
Weeks, then months, passed. How was I going to pay for this wonderful plan? I knew of a couple of funds for which I could apply that would cover the costs of airfare and tuition. All of a sudden it was spring, and the application deadlines loomed large and red on my calendar, less than a week away. That was the week, I might add, just after Holy Week and Easter ... and just before I had to leave for a 10-day trip in western Canada. More research, more pressure, and more dreaming. To qualify for each grant, I had to develop a research proposal with a focus and an outcome. It was fun to give the dream shape. And the pressure meant that I didn't try to make the proposals perfect - my goal was simply to get them in.
More weeks and months passed as I waited for the decisions to be made. I wrote to the Sisters of the Love of God, a religious community in Oxford that I had come to know in student days, about my desire for a retreat there. I received a hospitable reply, offering a place at their house in Kent instead. By mid-June, I learned that both of my applications for funding had been approved. I could now pay for the airfare to England and participate in the travel seminar.
Summer vacation was not far away, requiring its own level of planning and budgeting. And suddenly, there were fewer than four months before my departure. I still had no firm assurance of my participation in the travel seminar, though I now knew it was to be in South Africa rather than India. I still had no itinerary for my time in the United Kingdom. And there was an enormous workload to complete before I could leave in good conscience.
At the end of August, while having lunch with a good friend, also dreaming of a sabbatical, I learned about a sabbatical fund for clergy that made very generous grants in US dollars, without heavy demands in return. It sounded too good not to try. The deadline, however, was mid-September, and to qualify, one had to compete with 240 others from every denomination across the United States and Canada for about 40 grants.
Well, I thought, someone has to receive the grant, and it wouldn't be me if I didn't try. This meant more pressures and another deadline, with time growing short. The literature was very clear - a balanced sabbatical proposal was essential. At the very least, I supposed, this will help me to hone my plans yet further.
At the end of September, it was finally confirmed that I had been accepted into the seminar, travelling between Cape Town and Johannesburg for three weeks in January.
Meanwhile, at Church House, I buttonholed anyone who had been to or was going to South Africa. On the bus and subway to and from work, and whenever I could find a moment to sit, I would read about South Africa - the biography of Nelson Mandela, the writings of Desmond Tutu, the fiction of Alan Paton. I read about its history, religions, politics, and geography. The more I learned about the effects of colonialism in that country, the more I realized I had to learn about its effects in my own. So I started to read about pre-colonial Canada, about the encounter between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans. And I started to think about my own racial and ethnic origins. The journey of discovery was beginning already.
On a more practical level, I started to look in every luggage store I passed. I browsed through catalogues that sold travel clothes and backpacks. I agonized about what to take and what not to take for a four-month trip to two continents and two climates. I practised packing, and kept putting things in and taking things out. I made list after list - itinerary, budget, financial arrangements, household instructions.
In the end, my sabbatical has taken on a somewhat different shape from my original dream, and yet I see that it contains the essence of what I had hoped for - travel in Europe and beyond, a structured learning experience in South Africa, time for prayer and solitude, time for rest and recreation with friends. Here's the outline:
November: Fly to London, stay with friends, travel through England, Scotland, and Wales with a Britrail pass. Visit people and projects that are models of local mission. With luck, visit Whitby on the feast of St. Hilda. Spend a few days at Iona.
December: Make a 30-day retreat at Bede House, in Tunbridge, Kent. Spend Christmas with the sisters.
January: Fly to Cape Town, South Africa. Stay with a friend for the first week. Join the travel seminar group from the Episcopal Divinity School and travel with them to Johannesburg.
February: Stop in Paris. Rent a car and drive to Strasbourg, where another friend has a place overlooking a millstream. Use this time for writing, resting, eating, and socializing.
Is the schedule too full? Perhaps. Yet a wise friend assured me that when I am part way through a 30-day silent retreat, I won't feel over-programmed! And I don't begrudge defining some of the content and focus of my time in order to qualify for the sabbatical grants. At the same time, it was a good thing that I was required to seek balance in my plans - it seems to me that there's a nice combination of travel and retreat, study and vacation.
It is the eve of my departure, and coincidentally, Hallowe'en. For me, I feel that is the eve of a hallowed time in my life. The effort to make space has been enormous, and I confess I am tired out from the preparations, both at home and at work. Yet I am amazed that I am feeling some benefits of the sabbatical already - a sense of excitement, rejuvenation, of consolidating the parts of my life into a restful whole.
Maylanne Maybee is a staff member with the Partnerships department of General Synod.
