Welcome !

Welcome to my 2006 sabbatical blog!  

What you’ll find here is a running commentary on my experiences, both personal and theological, during four months of travel while on a pastoral sabbatical leave from St. Mark's United Church.  I travelled from Canada to Australia, Indonesia to Israel and Jordan, France to Britain and, finally, back to Canada. 

This blog served two purposes.  

First, it provided me with a vehicle to capture and reflect during this time away from my regular responsibilities as a pastoral minister, a time of personal restoration and rejuvenation.  

Second, it was a means to share my experiences with and engage my parishioners and colleagues in this time, to bring them to places of sacred significance and offer them a glimpse through my eyes. 

I can’t recommend a pastoral sabbatical highly enough.  Both for the minister and for the congregation.  For me it was a time of retreat, experience, and revelation, all of which came back with me and became woven into programmes and sermons.  For the congregation it was a time of being responsible for ministry in ways that they had not experienced before, building self-confidence in their exercise and ownership of ministry.  It was good for both of us.

The Sabbatical Working Group of the Permanent Committee on Ministry and Employment Policies and Services of the General Council of The United Church of Canada (now that’s a mouthful!) thought this blog offers a useful example of one way that sabbatical learnings and experiences can be shared.  I’m delighted to be invited to share it with you!  

Remember that a blog reads backward – you’ll find the first posts at the end.  So click on January and scroll down to the bottom.  You are welcome to quote anything I’ve written and to use the photographs that I’ve posted (they are all taken by me, with the exception of the first one at the beginning of my journey).  I do ask, though, that you respect the Creative Commons copyright terms and attribute the words or images to me.  Also, if you use something, let me know and send me a copy!  You can reach me at ahall@united-church.ca.  

Full Circle

Full circle.

Today (Wednesday) I was into the office at St. Mark's. This afternoon we picked up Browser, our dog, from my sister's and her husband, Louise and Doug. It feels now like I've come full circle, back to the first of January. Just now looking at the map on this blog I am reminded that this circle has taken me, literally, around the world.

It has been a fantastic four months, an extraordinary opportunity. I have seen and I have learned so much. In many respects, as my good friend and colleague Pegi reminds me, most of what I have learned will only become evident in the weeks and months ahead. I look forward to these continued revelations.

Yesterday someone asked me what my most significant learning was. I didn't have much time to think about the response but I didn't need much time to think about it: the most significant experience was the dramatic juxta- position of differing, and often conflicting, cultures and perspec- tives, expecta- tions and religious sensibilities.

(Trafalgar Square, London)

How do we all live together? Can we? Should we even try?

I come back to Jonathan Sacks' book "The Dignity of Difference" in which he writes that the created order is inherently diverse. The healthiest, strongest, most resilient bio-systems are those that are the most diverse. Those that are most vulnerable and fragile are the ones that are homo- genous. He concludes that human diversity is not only good, it is the divine intention. (Window in Christ Church (Uniting), Adelaide, Australia)

As I have thought about yesterday's conversation I have repeatedly gone back to lunch at the kebob place in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Here we are in this little shop in the residential area of this Arab neighbourhood, Muslim, Jew, and Christian, elbows on a wobbly table, sharing a platter of lamb and herb kebobs grilled over hot coals with onion and tomato, sleeves rolled up, reaching over each other, greasy hands eating with fresh pita discussing politics, economics, family, today's headlines, the cost of greens in the market, the value of the shekel, Iran's nuclear capacities, riots in Paris, snow in Canada (isn't there always snow in Canada??).

There was never agreement but there was always respect. We listened to each other, challenged each other, and laughed at and with each other. English, Hebrew and Arab were freely spoken, often at the same time, sometimes with raised voices. Handshakes, embraces, and kisses always concluded each lunch.

Maybe peace is not restricted to green pastures and still waters. Maybe peace can also be in the heated exchanges, the testy and testing relation- ships, and the differences that we can't always reconcile.

(On the banks of the Seine, Paris, France)

I will be thinking this through and developing it further in the weeks to come but for now I leave the thought with you and for your reflection. Post your your insights to me in the comments section or email them to me.

(Daintree Rainforest, north of Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia)

Thanks for accompanying me on this journey and sharing so many of my experiences! You've been clocking over a thousand page-views each month! Applause to Kathryn Moase, our webster at St. Mark's, for sourcing blogspot, helping setting it up and keeping me connected.

(Awaiting a royal procession, Ubud, Indonesia)

Thanks to the folks at St. Mark's who have taken on extra responsibilities and stretched into new territories to carry on the ministries of St. Mark's while I have been away. An extra special thank you to my colleague and right hand, Carol Caise, who has been nothing short of amazing in managing our office and coordinating all of our pastoral care while I've been wandering the globe.

If you are in the city (and you may not be -- you've been connecting from Australia, the US, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Israel, and Sweden, as well as from across Canada, coast to coast) come over to St. Mark's for dinner Friday evening. The gang's all gathering and it will be a party. You are welcome! (Pura Gunung Lebah, Ubud, Indonesia)

One last request: If anyone out there is interested in funding me for an annual twelve month sabbatical, please be in touch. I'm kinda hooked on this as a way of life!
(Jerusalem, Israel)

Completing the circle -- homeward bound.

More London

Hyde Park

Russell Square

Old and new -- the Tower of London on the left and City Hall on the right.

The British Museum

Posted at the Methodist Central Hall on Westminster Square.

Outside of the House of Commons

Westminster from the south bank of the Thames.

London

Greetings from London!

And from Randy and Loreen with whom we are staying. They are gracious and generous hosts. You'll see them pictured below at their country estate . . . OK, pictured at Blenheim Palace, near Oxford, where we visited Friday. We all picked up ideas for renovations and gardens at our places!

And then we attended Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. At one point during the service, while soaking up the melodious strains of the choir voices, I thought how archaic, even if beautiful, this liturgy is. But then I began thinking that the making of anything of beauty, of delicate, complex wonder, is an act of participating in the Spirit that is God. I started to see the Evensong rite as less about an offering of praise to satiate the Divine One and more a joining with and being part of the Divine.

Thursday we visited St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, watched the changing of the horse guards, toured the War Rooms, and caught sittings of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords from their visitor galleries (the Lord's gallery is actually called the "Strangers' Gallery".) Saturday we are doing the British Museum and National Gallery and then meeting Randy and Loreen at St. Martin-in-the-Fields for a performance of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons". And Sunday there will be the Tate Modern and tea with the Queen. OK, so our invitations have not arrived yet but I'm sure they are in the mail.

I'm going to have to go back to Jerusalem for a rest.

More Paris

I can't get enough of this city. Sigh . . . . Even Art is wondering why it took me eighteen years to get him here! Grrr . . . . We have had just an excellent time, with stunning evenings concluding each day.

Sunday night's concert at La Sainte-Chapelle was nothing short of soul shaping. A chamber orchestra of first and second violins, viola, cello, base cello and harpsichord with mezzo soprano soloist. The strains swept up to the 15m reaches of the 12th century gothic arches, melted with the glow of the setting sun caught in the magnificent windows fired by the artisans who did Chartres, and then sprinkled down upon us like a spring rain falling on new leaves.

OK, maybe you had to be there. But I assure you the Ave Maria could melt any heart and stop any breath! Awesome. Absolutely.

"Platée", a comic opera/ballet at the Garnier Opera House on Monday was fun. Our little velvet-lined box for six was a bit warm, but we coped.

Tonight we caught a concert at the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral -- 60 voice choir and organ. It brought tears to the eyes and satisfied those of us who love organs. My niece (who lives in France) and her friend from Sweden were our guests after which we had a wonderful dinner at a little bistro on Ile St. Louis.

Did some one say I'm coming back???? JNAC members at St. Mark's -- how about an outreach ministry here in Paris?

On to London tomorrow (Wednesday).

Paris !

Paris feels a bit like a transition place between the excitement of new cultures and places and those that are familiar and home. I know Paris well and have long had a love affair with it. It is good to be here.

Art joins me on Sunday for a few days – a Vivaldi concert at La Sainte Chapelle, “Platée” at the Garnier Opera House, an organ concert at Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, dinner with my niece who lives here in France . . . Paris is not for slackers!

Some images of this truly great city.

On the road again

Tel Aviv to Frankfurt to Paris.

The Peace of Jerusalem

In one sense, Jerusalem has run its course and it is time to be moving on. It is a small town and there is only so much religion I can take!

In another sense, however, I have only just come to feel at home here. Something of that which drew me to this city in the first place has moved from magic to familiar. The intensity of spirit which threatened to singe me when I first came has some how become folded into my spirit.

I'm not sure what it will be like to not be here, to not be at the intersection of times and faiths: Judaism; Christianity; Isalm; the Wall; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the call to prayer five times a day; Shabbat -- preparation, stillness and quiet, breaking.

Someone asked me if I felt like I'd stepped off of the world when I came here. Actually, I feel like I stepped into the vortex of our human realm.

I don't know what I was looking for or expecting coming here for two months, but what I found is a centre and, in the midst of all the chaos, the press of peoples and the often irritating proximity of that which is so different, I have found peace.

The Psalmist exhorts us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. As Jesus is in the habit of reminding us that the Realm of God is already at hand, in our hand, peace is already in Jerusalem, woven into its turmoil and tension.

Some of my favourite things about Jerusalem

The nifty hats.


The Dome of the Rock, from any angle.


Turkish coffee at the Chain Gate


Hanging out at the Damascus Gate.


The streets of the Old City at night.


The kids.


Evening Prayer at the Dormition Church. It gives meaning to the word "sanctuary" and the clear, strong voices of the priest singing the liturgy accompanied by the warm tones of the organ made you know all is OK as the darkness falls.