What I Did on My Vacation

I’m back from a brief digital sabbath, and my first pixels must be in gratitude to Scot Miller for so ably guest posting in my absence. Based on the comments, many of you resonated with Scot’s posts, particularly the one on his journey to progressive Christianity. I’ve given Scot an open invitation to guest post whenever he wants, so keep an eye out for him (and when you see his thoughtful comments, encourage him to expand them into full-fledged posts).

Over the weekend, Courtney and I joined Doug and Shelley Pagitt at the home of Brian and Grace McLaren in southwest Florida. The McLarens have been wanting to have us down there for several years, and this year the timing and the frequent flier miles happened to coincide perfectly.

Among other things, we:

• played tennis (the first time in 20 years for me)
• kayaked through the intercoastal waterways
• communed with Brian’s tortoises
• watched the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico
• talked about the Trinity
• grilled steaks
• hung out with Roy and Leslie Terry
• ate fish that Brian had caught the day before (so good!)
• took long runs
• talked presidential politics
• drank too much coffee
• talked about books, publishing, and speaking
• prayed the blessings of John O’Donohue

Mainly, I read. On Sunday, I read the New York Times cover-to-cover, a holiday tradition for me. I also read Lauren Winner’s beautiful new memoir, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis; I’ll blog about it next week. Brian had me read a section of Miroslav Volf’s Allah: A Christian Response. I continued my re-read of Moltmann’s God in Creation. And my current novel is Wolf Hall (which is amazing).

I did not even bring a computer with me, for the first time in many years. I did not check Facebook or Twitter even once (though I admit to scrolling through email about once a day to see if there was anything urgent). The result of that sabbath was, I must say, a mix. On the one hand, I felt a clear head to truly engage the people and the nature around me. On the other hand, I also experienced a creeping anxiety about all of the emails that I knew were piling up.

Even so, I’m looking forward to my next digital sabbath, whenever that may be…