The Pastor of our church just returned from a Sabbatical. He has now begun to write about the experience and the lessons learned from it. This made me think about my current period of unemployment (even though it's only been 2 weeks so far!) as potentially a type of sabbatical. My severance agreement grants me 7 months of salary continuation, one month for each year of service. I've worked for GuideOne for 7 years, and now have 7 months off. Seems like a sabbatical to me, except for the part that my job isn't there to come back to. (a key difference, I'll grant you)
Right now, I am feeling like I need to busy myself with searching for work rather than calming myself, letting the adrenaline high (from the work challenges I faced) slowly dissipate, and search instead for insight and wisdom.
One of the ideas we are discussing is whether or not I could move straight into retirement. Of course we can, but it may be a strain financially, and wasn't in our plan (which had me working for another 4 1/2 years). So I don't yet know if this is a sabbatical, a period of rest from which I will come back to the workforce reinvigorated, or if it's a transition into a new career: retirement. I love the sound of that last phrase. I have such plans for retirement!
Among those plans is a daily routine that addresses body, soul, mind, and spirit, at least a half-hour of each. Body: 30 minutes of exercise daily, varying among movement, strength, and endurance; Soul: 30 minutes of creativity daily, whether contemplating beauty, appreciating music, writing or making music; Mind: 30 minutes of reading daily, with a variety of literature: fiction, non-fiction, poetry; Spirit: 30 minutes of devotional reading, bible study and prayer. More possible in each of these categories, of course, but no less than this in each.
These last two weeks I decided to try the routine as if I were retired and see if it's sustainable. I've done fairly well with it so far - usually 3 of the four categories handled, with the one missing being different each day. I've found that the search for work intrudes and disrupts the routine and is mostly what causes me to miss one area. So, it's a half-hearted effort at best, but it seems that if I didn't have a work search intruding, it would be sustainable.
I've even written another children's book already. :) This will be my third, and it's focused on my boyhood experiences making maple syrup with my Dad and brother down in the woods behind my childhood home. At this point all I need is an illustrator.
And that writing exercise just scratches the surface. I've laid down 6 song tracks in the last two weeks as well. There's poetry in my head just waiting to be let out onto paper. I have a longing to help lead a small group, to do more teaching. All I need is the time.
Will it be now? Or in another 5 years?
No way to tell right now, so I'm not quite sure how to treat this 7 months of salary continuation. Sabbatical? Or a new direction entirely?
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