Read, Write, Farm:
A Sabbatical Time to Reclaim my Incarnate Self
I am 7 years into serving as Rector at an Episcopal Church in Montgomery, Alabama. I am about to start on my first-ever sabbatical leave. What follows is a description of the gathering of days I’ve been given to stop and breathe as deeply as I can.
What: Read. Write. Do strenuous physical activity. Pray. Learn “Old Lady” 🤪 farming/gardening techniques for sustainability. Maintain a written, video, and photographic journal of this time.
Why: I was never supposed to walk and to do so, I spent most of my childhood undergoing major surgery and doing physical therapy. I learned to live as much of my life as possible “removed from my incarnate self”— as a young child I escaped into fiction and reading as much as possible. As a young adult, I threw myself intensely into my studies. After graduating with a Masters in Divinity from an Episcopal seminary, for fifteen years, I focused on climbing the corporate ladder. Then, in 2001, my husband and I adopted our special needs daughter in México; with her, life became even more outward-focused. A few years later, I went through the process for ordination and was ordained in 2005—yet another reason to be too busy taking care of others rather than paying attention to myself, especially myself in flesh and bone and blood. Now, with an increasingly finite life horizon, I am mindful of a need to take sabbath time to renew my commitment to my incarnate self in ways that are playful, celebratory, and generative.
My husband and I still stop and marvel at the small farm in SoCentral Alabama that we moved to when my husband retired 10 years ago. We had spent almost 20 years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with an I-95 overpass in plain sight from our front door. This place? The silence? The stars we see at night? It’s heaven. I plan to spend the most of my sabbatical where I have been putting down roots for the past 10 years.
Some of what I will do is specific and practical. I plan to learn how to operate our tractor, make some repairs to our chicken coop, and learn a new way of growing food sustainably. As much as I have come to love and admire what my body is capable of, I am also more accepting of my limitations. Getting down on my knees to pull weeds and tend to a vegetable and flower garden is simply no longer a viable possibility for me. Instead, I propose to use elevated beds that will allow me to stand to do the work of planting, growing, and harvesting a crop.
The picture below shows the progress I’ve already made creating this garden plot. It consists of two 8 by 2 beds, two 4 by 2 beds, and four Purina Cow Stress Feed Tubs some dear friends gave me as winter was ending. There are ingenious passive watering systems that use terracotta pots that I also plan to learn how to install and use. Sherod and I have built a small farm stand and as I begin to harvest the food I grow, I will operate the stand on Saturdays and donate the proceeds from the sale of eggs and produce to the Holy Comforter food pantry.
Along the way, I am also going to do a lot of reading: a couple of Annie Dillard’s books I’ve wanted to read for a long time, a new book by Jeff Chu called “Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand.” I also am about to receive my copy of “Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash,” edited by Tamar Biala. I get almost giddy, thinking about the luxury of time I will receive in 10 short days.
I invite you to share some of this time with me.
