The purpose of all trips. . .

The purpose of all trips, as G.K. Chesterton used to say, is to come home.
So, the purpose of the pilgrimage is to come home–
but to come home with new eyes and a new heart.
If we return home the same as when we left,
then the pilgrimage has not been successful
and perhaps has just been a pious vacation where shrines are visited
instead of nightclubs.

(Pray all Ways, Edward Hays, Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2007. p 73)

Yesterday morning during fellowship hour, one of the congregation members pulled me aside and asked: Do you know where your home is? The asking of the question touched me, and the answer is yes, I know where it is. My home is where my heart is and where my heart is kept by others.

People keep asking when I am going -- as if to go away is the only way to pilgrimage. It might be more challenging to pilgrimage while at home, but I look forward to the challenge.

Here's to new eyes and a new heart!

Counting Days

Last night, amid the tinkling of icicles on the trees, I was stunned to think -- four weeks from today, I will be on Sabbatical. This is something I have thought about, dreamed about, planned for -- for well, quite a long time. So I have been "finding" my desk at the office (why is it taking being out of the office for four months for me to do that?) -- and writing to-do lists. All of this amid the planning and preparation of Lent and Easter. And in the midst of all this, it dawned on me -- I want to do this Sabbatical "right."

Of course that means that I think there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to do Sabbatical. I know what wrong would be -- ignoring the boarders and boundaries of being away. But somehow what I know as the "right way" seems reckless -- all this getting away -- read, relaxing, resting. . .

And yet, we were created for that as well.

So I plan -- I purpose -- I pray. Sabbatical -- time away.