Sabbath - the one commandment that's optional?

Halfway through sabbatical,  I now feel that I am now batting, rather than ducking for cover at short leg.  Suppiah hits a six against Durham.

With my job comes the great privilege of being on sabbatical for three months every seventh year.  And here I am, towards the end of my seventh year, and yesterday marked the halfway point in my three months.  How did I mark it?  I went to Taunton to watch cricket for the day and at around two o'clock I toasted my sabbatical with a pint of beer.  I took some reasonable pictures -  more to follow. 

I am becoming used to people in the congregation asking how my holiday is.  And I don't resent that at all.  While I am doing some study and reading and visiting other churches and ministers to try and pick up some fresh ideas, I have also taken it easy too.  I am walking the Cotswold Way, have watched two games of cricket in a row, I've taken hundreds and hundreds of photographs, tried to get the garden in some sort of order, and had the luxury of not being on duty on a Sunday or at a single meeting in the evening.  My Dad thinks I've retired early.  It's been great.   

In truth it took me about five weeks to fully unwind.  That sounds ridiculous but I offer it for the benefit of any ministers who might stumble across this.  Mine was a tiredness that wasn't going to be remedied by two weeks in the sun.  In fact it took five weeks in the rain. It might take others longer.  

I started off feeling guilty about being off and disorientated by living without deadlines.  That has gone and now that I have the ability and opportunity to relax I am doing so - without shame or guilt.  I'm still doing the study and reading etc, but I'm also having a great time too, making the most of this gift of time.  

Ministers are often pretty poor at taking their days off.  I am actually very good at it - religious even - and I was still exhausted by the time sabbatical came around.  A friend who is a minister has been wise enough to take a month out to recharge and their church were happy for this, recognising the need.  Another minister friend is just back after a sabbatical that became ten months away because they were so burnt out.  It's hard for others to get their heads around but being a minister is tough.  Exhilarating, frustrating, wonderful, funny, desperately sad, unpredictable, privileged, and sometimes it just breaks your heart - assuming it hasn't become hard.  Sabbatical is a good time to restore your factory settings and go again.  

Trego launches one; one bounce into the boundary boards.

If you are reading this as the member of a congregation, and your minister hasn't had a sabbatical, or they aren't good at taking days off, ask them why.  They probably need someone in their corner to push them a bit on this.  He or she almost certainly gets more criticism than encouragement each week, and that wears down anyone after a while.  Encourage them to take time out, they'll love you for it. 

Meanwhile, I have got to go.  The Test match isn't going to watch itself. 

Depression and stress

My friendly local iron man is visiting us for the weekend to run a half-marathon here and so I have been reading Marcus Trescothick's autobiography in order to finish and return it as I have had it for about two years now. 

Found the battle of Marcus' depression especially interesting and these words which he paraphrases from something he read to make sense of his condition:

"Depressive illness, or at least the commonest form, which is caused by stress, nearly always happens to one type of person.  He or she will have the following characteristics; (moral) strength, reliability, diligence, strong conscience, strong sense of responsibility, a tendency to focus on the needs of others before one's own, sensitivity, vulnerability to criticism, self-esteem dependent on the evaluation of others. 

This person is the sort to whom you would turn if you had a problem to sort out  upon which your house depended, a safe pair of hands you can trust with your life, though often somewhat taken for granted.  People are usually very surprised when he gets ill, indeed he is the last person you would expect to have a breakdown. 

But it isn't so surprising when you consider that depressive illness is a physical condition.  Think about it; give a set of stresses to a person who is weak, cynical or lazy and he will quickly give up.  So he will never get stressed enough to become ill.  A strong person, on the other hand, will react to these pressures by trying to overcome them.  After all, he has overcome every challenge he has faced in the past through diligence and effort.  So he keeps going, absorbing more and more until, inevitably, symptoms emerge.  At this point most people will say, "Hang on this is ridiculous.  I'm doing too much."  So they pull back from the brink before it is too late.  But the sensitive person, without a very solid sense of self-esteem, can't stop struggling, because he fears other people being disappointed in him.  Even more than this he fears being disappointed in himself.  So he keeps on going, on and on and on, until suddenly: BANG!  the fuse blows"  (pages 253-4 in the hardback).

This rings true of my one (very old) experience of a moderate depression and is, I think, a clear warning to all of us.  I guess, reading it from the point of view of a pastor in a church, it is a reminder of how dangerous it is to our health if we think that we can fix everyone and forget that only God can, and how it is equally dangerous to look to other people for approval when it is actually only God's approval that truly matters.  And you don't earn that, it's a gift.  Sometimes we know that in our heads but it gets stuck before it hits our hearts. 

A lesson from a cricket batsman with a Test average just shy of 44.  I think it would be wise to take note.