This is the question that blessed us into our journey together over the summer. Though apart in distance, I felt your presence in my prayers and in my visions, bowing toward you as if sharing a labyrinth path, seeing you on the turns.

Sabbatical, different from a vacation, is a time of leaning into longings of the spirit, drawing closer to God and to one’s vocation. By engaging in a pilgrimage, where the primary learning is about myself, not the places I traveled, I leaned into the places that make my heart sing: setting aside time for prayer, learning new things, reconnecting with friends, moving my body, and sitting in nature.

One day, in New York, I met Paul, a Dutch man who moved to NYC to paint the city. Traveling around town on his bike, he takes out his canvas, brushes, and paints to paint the colors and shapes that stick out to him that day. In saddlebags that convert to a roaming art store, my friend Tahiré and I looked through copies of his paintings. They captured grey days and sunny ones, reconnections and difficult conversations, trees that bloomed and ones that fell down. His art showed the complexity of a living land where artists, students, professionals, celebrities, and the unhoused share Central Park, often at the same time.

In talking to Paul, I caught a glimpse of someone in love with their vocation. Someone who sparkles with excitement over the smallest part of being an observer of the world, adding record and beauty of it to the world around him. Watching him, hearing his story, and looking through his art brought me to my first, and biggest, lesson of sabbatical, said best in Mary Oliver’s words: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

Paul gives attention to shapes, colors, and emotions, devoting himself to life around him. I have learned I give attention to people, communities, and the details in a landscape. What have you learned or are you learning about yourself? What do you give attention to?

Blessings,
Pastor Lauren