Patrick's Sabbatical - One Month To Go.
I'm now in the final month of my sabbatical and the cycle trip around Europe already seems like a distant memory. Still feeling the benefits though - more than anything the sense of being 'de-cluttered'. To have this time to just 'be' without the pressure of meetings, sermon prep and deadlines, to get up late, to see how the day unfolds - it's been a real joy. I guess this is what a sabbatical is all about. I haven't managed to stay off my bike completely though. I've made a couple of trips to the coast (meeting up with Rosie and Maggie at West Wittering), and then a few weeks ago I biked to Wales over a couple of days, camping near Bath. I even managed to get Rosie on a thirty miler to visit her mother in Whitchurch.
Much has been happening on the home front. Firstly getting Johnny through his A levels. He is part of the cohort that missed their GCSEs a couple of years ago so this has been his first experience of 'serious' exams. He's worked well, hasn't appeared over-stressed, and sat his last exam on Friday. He hopes he has done enough to secure the necessary grades to study film in Bristol this September. Results come out on 18th August.
Then there has been the installation of the new kitchen. Rosie has basically project managed the whole thing, coordinating builders, fitters, plumbers, electricians, plasterers and decorators - no mean feat! So for the past month we've been living out of a temporary kitchen under the church gazebo in the back garden. The new kitchen is now being painted as I write, and there are still a few more jobs to be done (like laying the floor), but yesterday we finally took down the gazebo and moved back into the house. The disruption has been more than worth it though as the extra space makes a huge difference. Fortunately Johnny could use my study at church when the noise was interfering with his revision.
Field kitchen.
New kitchen
Thirdly, my mother has had a stroke and for the past month has been in hospital in Wales. Mum has always enjoyed good health and, at almost ninety, is often mistaken for being in her mid-seventies. But now the infirmities of old age have caught up with her and it has been hard to see her bed bound and in need of care. She was staying with my brother James near Caerphilly when it happened so is now in hospital in Abergavenny. So, along with my three brothers, our wives and our children, we have been making sure she has a visitor every day. Mum has lost some of the use of her left side and with the help of the excellent physios has been learning to walk again, though she is unlikely to fully regain her mobility.
Because of the regular trips to Wales I decided to put my placement with the Chaplaincy Team at Coldingley Prison on hold (delayed anyway because Rod the Chaplain got COVID). Also, we decided with the family last year that when the time was right Mum would leave her home near Petersfield and move in with us. Mum loves our church, having joined us online almost every Sunday for the last couple of years, and we hope that , with the right care package, she might still be able to be with us for the last chapter of her life. Tomorrow Rosie and I will be in Wales covering visits until the end of the week.
Mum at Jess and Sam’s wedding last year
Alongside all of the above I have still managed to get some reading done. As part of my sabbatical I wanted to take some time to reflect on climate change and how this impacts on our theology and faith. How should Christians view the growing global climate crisis in the light of Scripture and our understanding of God's plans and purposes? How should this motivate us to engage and to act? I've just read Katharine Hayhoe's excellent book 'Saving Us'. Katharine is a respected climate scientist and also a committed Christian.
Her TED Talk 'The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Fight Climate Change: Talk About It' has been viewed over 5 million times. Her book pulls no punches when it comes to the gravity of the situation but she also expresses hope - well worth reading. Funnily enough, Andrew Leake - whom we supported as a church when he was with CMS - came to stay the other night. He now works with Compassion International advising them as to how to adapt their projects and investments to the climate crisis. When I mentioned Katharine’s book to him he replied, ‘Oh, I’m involved in a project with her’. Friends in high places!
I've now just started 'Bible and Ecology 'by Richard Bauckham. Richard is a respected theologian and he poses the question, 'How should Christians read the Bible in an age of ecological disaster?' He then goes on to argue for a deeper understanding of the place of humans in relation to the rest of creation, given that we've made the mistake of thinking that nature exists to serve us. He takes the reader on a journey through the Bible to show how God has created humankind, other living things and the environment to work together serve one another. Reading this alongside headlines of heatwaves in Spain, the US and India makes all this feel far from academic. Expect a sermon series on this before too long!
To close, I saw a film the other evening that moved me deeply. Rosie had gone out for the evening with her sister to hear Patrick Reagan speak at a 'Kintsugi Hope' event in Andover (she said it was excellent), and Johnny was on a shift at his pub, so I had the evening to myself. I was reading an article in 'Christianity' magazine reviewing some of the most powerful films with a Christian theme, and it mentioned the 2019 film 'A Hidden Life' by the director Terrence Malick. So I found it on Amazon Prime.
It's about Franz Jaegerstatter, a farmer in Austria who refuses to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler during the Second World War. This leads him to imprisonment and execution in Berlin. Leaving behind a wife and three young children, the film portrays the quiet faith that leads to his decision, the fear as he acts upon it, the almost unbearable pressure he is under from every quarter to renounce this 'futile stand that changes nothing', and his extraordinary moral strength in choosing death when a simple act (in this case the signing of a letter) would grant him release. How would I behave in similar circumstances? Where are people facing similar decisions today?
Beautifully filmed in the same hills of Upper Austria I cycled through a couple of months ago, if I’d seen the film earlier I would certainly have added Sankt Radegund to my itinerary, and the memorial stone placed there in honour of Franz. The film ends with a powerful quote from the nineteenth century novelist George Eliot:
“.. for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
Next week Rosie and I head to Spain for ten days near Alicante. We look forward to being back with you on 18th July.