Posted on Jun 10, 2009
On Sunday June 14, deo volente, my family and I will depart for my(our) sabbatical. The first three weeks or so will be a time of travel in Europe with the family. As I said in the proposal to the Lilly Endowment, I want to give these folks a gift for all they've done to support me throughout my ministry. The rest of the time will be an extended series of retreat. I will visit contemporary religious communities in England and Scotland. These are "dispersed communities," where people live normal lives out in the world, but look back to a common inspiration and rule of life to find their way in the world. I will then spend three weeks with a radically un-dispersed community, the Trappists of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. One of the vows the brothers take is a vow of stability, a promise to live out their lives in that place. I'll be looking at how all of these people manage prayer in their own daily lives.
Many of us are pretty good at weekly worship, and some of us are pretty good at daily prayer. My hope is to find a balance between the two which will work in the modern world. In a world where so many voices try to tell us who we are, I think that in this balance we can be rooted in our Christian identity.