How was your sabbatical?

From January 1 until June 1, I was privileged with a sabbatical from my work at Calvin College.  The purpose of this sabbatical, as I understand it, was to allow some space for me to read, write, reflect, and rest, and to prompt some fresh thinking for my work and scholarship.  So that's what I worked on.  I  spent time at home, in coffee shops, and most inspiring, at the headquarters of ICCF.  I read several institutional histories from colleges and universities with faith commitments - places like Augsburg, Baylor, Calvin, DePaul, Gordon, Gustavus Adolphus, Messiah, Notre Dame, Pepperdine, Valparaiso, Whitworth, Wheaton, and others.  I wrote lots of notes on these stories, and I've gotten well along on a draft of a plenary lecture I am scheduled to give at the 22nd annual Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts in October.  I was at home to say goodbye to my kids in the morning as they headed off to school, and I was often home when they've arrived back home from school.  We visited a nice beach and state park in South Carolina as a family for spring break, and we went with friends to see Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.  I met a few students for breakfast every Wednesday morning, and I reconnected with dozens of friends from whom we were disconnected for the fall semester - over coffee or at one of Grand Rapids' wonderful beer pubs.  I organized, with some neighbors, a potluck Memorial Day picnic in our backyard, and was thrilled when nearly 50 of us gathered last week Monday.  And as the sabbatical time turned back into the normal routine, as May turned to June, I was, appropriately, in the middle of a national conversation about faith-based higher education and service-learning, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania - with colleagues and students from Calvin, and from around the country. 

Now I have been back at work for one week.  During that week I spent several hours each day in a faculty workshop on "Christian Engagement with People from Other Faith Traditions."  We read from J.H. Bavinck and Diane Obenchain (our seminar leader), Andrew Walls, and E. Stanley Jones, among others.  We talked about missions, and about inter-faith dialog and service.  It was inspiring and thought-provoking.  I also worked with four students and my colleagues in the Student Life Division, the Student Development Unit, and the Service-Learning Center, to get things unpacked, to hear about the year I missed, and to move into the summer with new energy, new rhythms of work and study, and a fresh vision for the work of connecting Calvin College with a host of service-learning and community engagement partners from around the city and around the country, and increasingly, from places where we send students for study abroad opportunities around the world.

I am encouraged by my work, my study, and my rest.  I see evidence of a growing host of people who understand what Wendell Berry means by affection, and who are spending their considerable intellectual, creative, and spiritual passions on building systems, institutions, families, communities, schools, and organizations that give witness to a coming kingdom of hope - a world turned right-side up.  This host includes, among many others, the Association for a More Just Society, the New Horizons Foundation, *culture is not optional, and ICCF - the Inner City Christian Federation, in Grand Rapids.

Thanks, Calvin College, for the gifts of this past year, including five months in Budapest and other places in Europe.  And for the rest of this winter and spring, and the hope of the summer and academic year that lies ahead.