A Little R&R

What do I call this journey? Sabbatical sounds like something my dad would do. R&R sounds too cheep and gives Lavendar Latte vibes. Maybe R&R works if I call it repentance and refocus. 

Yes, 180 days of repentance, repentance of my own fantasies of indispensability – a right sizing of my aspirations.

I used to idealize the book From Good to Great. Maybe this is a journey back from “greatness” to be simply good. 

In any case, this is a decision to step back, to pause, to feel, to taste and most of all to listen to a God that is good. 

Our sons are happily moved out. I have the urge to aspire and stretch for something new, bigger, but wiser voices have prevailed. Wait, wait, wait on the Lord.  

I have an idea, some lists of things I could do in these 180 days while I wait, but I also don’t know where this will lead. 

I am not actually stopping anything specifically, but this post yesterday caught my eye. 

Life won’t let me just stop, but neither do I have to be “chained here, kept alive only for the good of the ship” like Ben Hur.  There is beauty and wisdom and meaning in this stage, I am going to slow down and notice it and learn from it and be changed by it. I don’t want to die the grumpy man I am most of the time around the house. 

Something else I read recently. Good photographers simply see things that others pass by. I don’t want to pass by. Is it Aerosmith that said it, “I don’t want to miss a thing.”

I saw this as I rode my bike this evening. 

Ironically, yesterday on day zero of this journey, I lost a years-long argument with my doctor about high blood pressure. Today I started taking medication for high blood pressure. 

Yet, I am heading out on this journey. First stop was Williamsburg for some Feijoada. Apparently, it is Brazil’s national dish. Who knew?

My Social Work Professor and mentor suggested it. I knew it would be real if she pointed it out, because she only likes real things. I was not disappointed. Comfort food, like something a grandma would make. Black beans and spiced pork with fresh salsa and shredded greens. I thought of my aunt and her family who lived there — one of the first foreign countries I learned about as my late mother spoke in reverential tones about this magical place called Brazil. I found it on the globe, an impressive country. The work was always respected and when my uncle passed, it became legendary in my little 5-year-old mind. He had been a leader in the Amish world, a little world that had been cracked open by my equally visionary grandfather, an Amish Bishop. How fitting that I should be drawn here for my first taste of something new. 

Wonder what the next 179 days will hold?

This I know. “For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. (Isaiah 30:15a)