Days 3-4: Rules for a hospitable Sabbatical

"Are you excited?"  This was the most common question in the weeks leading up to my sabbatical.  Sometimes I replied with a simple yes, while other times I explained that I am never really excited until I've finished packing and I still had much packing to do - both literal and metaphorical.  These answers were the truth, but not the whole truth.

Accompanying excitement was her cousin emotion of fear.  The fear wasn't so much of traveling tragedies like crashing planes or getting lost.  The fear was more of messing up, FOMU if you will.  I feel like a painter who has been given a fresh, clean, large perfect canvas, a cup of brushes and a palate of full of paints.  What an amazing gift, so few people ever get such a privilege.  This canvas could become a sunset over the Pacific, the wrinkled face of a relative or an explosion of colors in an abstract arrangement.  What possibilities!  What possibilities?  Where do I start?  What color do I use?  What subject do I choose?  One mistake could ruin the whole canvas.  Coming back to the sabbatical canvas; what will I do?  Where will I start?  What if what I choose to do turns out to be a waste of time?  What if hospitality is a useless theme?  It felt as if one mistake could ruin the whole four months.

Upon further reflection, it could have been this pressure that led to me climbing under the broom tree on Sunday afternoon.  "Okay Ken," the voice on my shoulder said, "now you better have a great sabbatical experience to share with the people or they'll be disappointed." "Don't mess up," said another voice.  Instead  of feeling liberating, four months of Sabbath felt weighty, heavy.  Then, in a moment, something changed.

On Monday, as usual, I went for a run at Fort Steilacoom in Lakewood. Somewhere between the parking lot and Pierce College I had an epiphany.  There is a trail that runs north/south.   To the west is a hill upon which sits the ruins of the old hospital. To the east is a row of tall narrow trees.  The two pair to form this canopy under which the dirt trail goes.  I remember running down the shadows of this trail, Tallulah a few steps in front, breathing hard, beads of sweat on my brow from the unusually sunny day and thinking, "this is beautiful."  It felt like a scene that should be in a movie, this scene, this moment was worth capturing but there were no cameras.  So I blinked - click - and stored it in my mind - only now to be shared for the first time.

A while back I wrote a poem that ended with the following refrain.
Be present to the presence
at the end
all moments are key moments
and life a field of bushes burning
to be noticed

It was right to compare this sabbatical to a blank canvas, what was wrong was to see it only as one canvas.  If each day is a canvas then I have 120 to paint upon.  If each hour then I have 2880 and if each minute is a moment then 122,800 are still before me.  And if you go so far as to say each second is a moment then each of us have 10,368,000 upon which to paint this sabbatical season.  With such abundance who needs fear messing up?

Mary Oliver's poem "Rules for Living a Life" is so memorable and powerful it is worth repeating here.

Rules for Living a Life
Pay attention
Be astonished
Tell about it

In that vein I have come up with my own version for this season.  Here they are so far:

Rules for a Hospitable Sabbatical
Welcome interruptions
Capture moments
Give thanks 

I don't yet know the form or frequency of these posts.  Had I to guess they will fall into one of these rules; interruptions, moments and thanks.  We shall see, after all we have over 10 million chances to do so.

A brief update
As I write I sit in a cafe, right on the famed Highway 101.  From my Uber driver (Evangeline) to my host in Encinitas (Dave) I have already experienced a wealth of hospitality.  You can see from the pictures that this coastal town is beautiful.

In just a few hours I will drive forty miles East into the hills of Escondito to Deer Park Monastery where I will stay until Tuesday.   While there I will sleep in a dorm, get up at 5:00, meditate, eat vegan meals and learn to practice a form of paying attention called mindfulness.  The community is very different  from what I'm used to and to be honest I'm a little nervous. I don't feel quite in control, a little vulnerable.  And yet, that in some ways is the perfect place to be.