Page 20 - Southwell School Chronicle July 2018

“They seek him here, they seek him there, they seek him everywhere.” This could be my byline next term as I take sabbatical leave from the School. People have asked me just what exactly sabbatical leave is. I prefer the Biblical definition as an answer, and to tell people what it is not!
It is not a long holiday, nor is it a
time to read books on Chaplaincy, or write a book or work on some special project (unless one personally chooses to.) The Biblical precedent and Christian tradition is for ministers to
go on sabbatical once every 7 years – although mine comes around every 10 years.
A true sabbatical is a season of Sabbath for prolonged rest. It’s like stringing together a number of Sabbath days. It’s an extended time in which you do no work. You just “do nothing!”
Yes, nothing! Of course we don’t do nothing as an end in itself – that would be an empty legalism. Our purpose is
REVEREND CANON NEALE TROON
to worship our Creator and Redeemer (like the Bible teaches in the Sabbath commands of Exodus & Deuteronomy). In essence then, the key to Sabbath rest for all of us is: “Do nothing! Don’t try to make anything happen!” Just be with God.
There is, then, much wisdom for all of us in taking Sabbath time each week, or even part of a day, to train ourselves in extended solitude and silence with Jesus. Eventually, after your body stops jittering, after your thoughts stop flitting about, after you start feeling your emotions, after your ‘best’ of self that performs and pleases is broken down, after you experience your nothingness and nakedness before God, after you experience unconditional love, then you can hopefully begin to really rest in your body and soul.
We’re putting the words of Psalm 23 to the test. “The Lord is my shepherd,” we say with David. “I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
Ah! There it is! He restores my soul. This soul restoration comes as we submit to the Lord as our Shepherd, lying down and being still in his presence.
Try it. It’s powerful and transformational – and it can be a little scary as we detect elements of our living that could be described as soul- less and life-draining.
So that’s where I’ll “be” in Term 3. Not so heavenly minded that I will be off the planet but experiencing a great gift from Southwell to myself and one, I pray, will deepen my ministry amongst the family in our blessed community.
In Christ, Chaplain
FROM OUR CHAPLAIN
FROM THE CHAPLAIN’S PEN
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