“I wanna fit in to the perfect space,

feel natural and safe in a volatile place.”

My recent sabbatical was filled with so many peaceful/ gravid/ playful/ meaningful moments that can only be described in small doses. I’ve tried to tell people about my 3 months off and what my family and I did and I always find myself getting stuck because there is just so much to say. I thought it might be cool to attempt a few blog posts that just describe some of my favorite moments and what they meant to me.

For the last two years my favorite band without any competition has been the Avett Brothers. Their music speaks to me at this time in my life in ways that have helped me get in touch with my soul and my heart. They put to words things that are deep inside of me, which is what good music and other art is supposed to do. One of my favorite lines is from a song of theirs called The Perfect Space. “I wanna fit in to the perfect space/ feel natural and safe in a volatile place”. The whole song is good, but I instantly resonated with this line and I always carry it around with me. I think it has tremendous spiritual significance. Knowing and experiencing God in one’s daily life is something that takes intentionality and I have found that there are different forms of “a perfect space” and I’m going to attempt to briefly describe some of those moments from my sabbatical…right now.

Balcony with Maris at Disney

After spending four days of hectic silliness in Disneyland and California Adventure with our kiddos, Marisa and I found ourselves on the deck of our Disney hotel room looking down on the late night cacophony of Main Street Disney. It was about 12:30 am. Our kids where finally sleeping and we each had a Long Island Iced Tea, which we never drink- but I think I bought them because they seemed celebratory. I really had not connected with Marisa in over 3 weeks. Before Disneyland I had been on a mission trip and when we finally met up in California we had to bring our Disney A-game for the kids. Sitting on the balcony with Marisa that night was magical…and not in a Disney way. It was magical because Marisa and I had been working in tandem as parents for 4 days of non-stop hysteria. Disneyland was special and full of sweet moments with our kids that we will always treasure, but it was also filled with the kind of mayhem that can only come from being at a packed theme park with a 7 and 5 year old. Now we were together looking out at the late night madness of people dashing out of the theme park to get to their cars. There was a live jazz group playing below us, Disney music was still pumping from the various stores that line Main Street Disney, large clusters of kids and families were laughing and yelling. The smoke from the Disney fireworks show still hung in the distance. Marisa and I sat on this balcony and had our magical perfect-space moment knowing that our Disney adventure was over and that we were more in love and committed to our family than ever. We didn’t necessarily say those words, but we were both feeling it. It’s ironic that in the midst of all that chaos I felt more peace and contentment than I had felt in a long time.

Reading with Jack on the Couch

                  I call the 6 weeks in our Pasadena apartment our cocoon time because of moments like this. We had a routine that we settled into pretty quickly and every morning started with Jack and me reading on our living room couch. I would wake up at 6:30, take a shower, pour myself a cup of coffee, and catch up on any reading that I had to do for my seminary class that day. Marisa would simultaneously head out the door for her morning workout routine. Jack would usually saunter out into the room around 6:50 bleary eyed and disheveled with a book in his hand. I’d usually say something like “hey bud” and he would acknowledge me with a glance and plop himself down on the couch. We would sit there reading in total silence for a good 30 minutes before Avery woke up and for me it was a special moment of tranquility that I got to look forward to everyday. Sipping coffee in the quiet of the morning with a good book is about as good as any of us can expect in this life, but having my boy by my side added a layer of meaning and delicacy to those quiet mornings. Childhood is so fleeting and to be able to have a special moment like that continue in repetition for several weeks was a gift.

Pool with the Family

Our apartment in Pasadena had a small pool where we would meet up as a family every evening. I would usually get done studying in the library at about 4. I would go on a run, rinse off, and meet Marisa and the kids for nearly two hours of lounging, splashing, and wrestling. The kids just never got tired of the pool. They would play for an hour and still have a hard time leaving when it was time to be done. For Marisa and me it was perfect because we could sit by the pool and debrief the day while the kids swam and when we were done chatting we would dive in and play with them for a while. Jack usually had some toys that he would throw into the pool and go searching for with his goggles. Avery would usually be practicing some sort of new dangerous jump off the steps in the shallow end. One of the cool parts about the pool was that at the beginning of the sabbatical the kids were both very tentative about swimming in the deep end, but by the end of the trip they were both confidently jumping in and swimming by themselves no matter how deep the water. They got really comfortable in the water. Family rituals and routine are so important and it seems nearly impossible to maintain anything constant. I am so thankful that we had this space in the evenings to laugh, relax, and unwind as a family.

Easy Street with Avery

When we returned from our 6-week stint in Pasadena we had a lot of days here in Seattle where we got to just laze around. One afternoon Avery and I very spontaneously decided to take a trip to Easy Street Records at the bottom of Queen Anne. We’ve done this several times before, but we hadn’t been in a while. Jack and I bond over video games, good books, and even Pokémon. Avery and I tend to bond over music. Easy Street is about as authentic of a record store as anybody can find now. I still think it’s romantic to buy a physical CD or book. Sure I buy books and CD’s online, but buying a CD at Easy Street is an experience. The whole store feels like some edgy underground concert venue. It’s filled with handmade wooden shelving and concert posters. The whole place feels like a love affair with music. After Avery and I arrived, we spent about 30 minutes walking up and down the aisles. I showed her where the Beatles and Bob Dylan sections were and we looked at the old vintage record section together. Then we finally made our way over to the listening station, which is an old beat up telephone booth hanging on the wall with giant headphones attached. I put Avery’s headphones on for her and carefully selected some tracks that I knew she’d like and that would also be appropriate. There are so many fantastic elements to this moment. Bonding with people you love is one of those essential joys that keep us going in life. Watching my daughter discover music in much the same way that I do is enchanting. Avery listens to music with her entire being. You can tell that she really feels it. I don’t consider myself a musician or anything, but I relate to her. Music puts me into a different state of existence where I feel like life is almost too beautiful. That afternoon something clicked into place for me and I felt like there was nowhere else in the world I’d rather be than in that record store rocking out with Avery at the listening station.

The Moore’s La Conner House

During the beginning of the third month of the sabbatical I got to spend some time at a house in La Conner that a wonderful couple at our church let me stay at. It was supposed to be time to just get some solitude, but it turned into so much more. The first night that I arrived at the house just happened to be the most gorgeous evening I’ve experienced in a long long time. The house has a stunning view of an indiscriminant Puget Sound bay. I had driven through two hours of thick rain to get to the house, but by the time I arrived at about 4, the clouds started to break and the beginning of an epic sunset was just starting to take shape. Luckily I brought my camera and I just decided that I was going to go out to give this sunset a chance to give me everything it had to offer. I spent about 3 hours walking up and down the beach listening to the ocean, the birds, and the silence. My heart is racing even now as I think back to it. It’s just not that often that we really get to experience stuff like this. I’m always observing a sunset “on-the-go”. I rarely just get to stop and take it all in. God is probably more present is sunsets and sunrises than at other times. I’m not a morning person so I’m not really one for sun-rises. That night I was wide-awake and I had nowhere else to be. I had my camera with me so I tried to take as many pictures as possible, but I eventually ended up on a little cliff about a mile away from the house watching the last moments of the light show while I prayed and sang hymns.

Reading at Greenlake/ Running at Discovery- OR- “The Sabbatical Sweet Spot”

During the third part of the sabbatical the kids started school full time and my sabbatical “sweet spot” began. When I heard people talk about sabbatical I pictured uninterrupted rest and leisure out in nature. My two favorite places to spend my time were Green Lake and Discovery Park. There isn’t much to reference in my life experience to help me explain what these three weeks of unadulterated chill time felt like. One of the feelings I can liken it to is summer break when I was in my early teens. Before 15 or so I didn’t have to work during the summer and I just got to wake up and do whatever I wanted. That’s what this was like. The only difference is that my interests have changed. Instead of watching three hours of TV and then going outside to play Ninja Turtles with my friends or something I just wanted to read, run, and stare-off. And that’s what I did. I would usually be gone at Green Lake or Discovery Park for 4 to 6 hours. I would run for about an hour and then I would sit and stare at the lake or the ocean for I-don’t-know-how-long. I would usually bring a novel with me so I would read for a while, take a staring-off-break, read, go get coffee, stare off some more, nap, read, take a walk, read, stare off….over and over again for weeks. It was as marvelous as it sounds. I call this time the “sabbatical-sweet-spot” because it was the time I felt the most rested. I’m only 32, but as I’ve settled into the idea of work and career the concept of Sabbath and rest has come up a lot. We were absolutely created to serve God and give him everything we’ve got, but we were also created for seasons of rest. A weekly discipline of Sabbath rest is a required element to the Christian life that also happens to be a total gift. I think the sabbatical was an opportunity for me to reflect on what rest is exactly and what it means to trust that God is in control and not me. I also needed to just rest in God’s love and presence. We’re told that if we seek than we will find. Going into the sabbatical I had a slight fear that I would seek and not find. I thought that maybe if I went looking for a God a little more intentionally and diligently than normal I would find that God actually wasn’t there. That wasn’t the case. During these weeks of leisure and uninterrupted space I found God. I didn’t hear an audible voice or anything, but I felt Christ’s intimate presence surrounding me wherever I went. During this time I would listen to Mother Nature’s Son by Paul McCartney a bunch. I know it’s kind of new agey, but when I listen to that song as a Christian I can pretty easily replace “Mother Nature’s Son” with “God’s Son”. That song pretty much sums up how I felt during this season and it’s something I hope to be able to revisit when times of stress inevitably occur.

Final Date weekend with Marisa

During the last weekend of the sabbatical Marisa and I stayed in a hotel in downtown Bellevue for a weekend. Her parents took the kids for two days and we just got to explore Bellevue and be best friends. We stayed out late, slept in, walked hand in hand through out the city, saw two movies, read our books, and talked and talked and talked. These times are always total confirmations that Marisa and I are still more in love than we’ve even been. We both love our kids to death, but when we are able to get time together like that last weekend it’s astonishing how much joy and contentment we find just being together. It’s not hard to leave our cell phones behind and forget about the world. That’s a blessing that I never want to take for granted. I knew when I married Marisa that she was my most favorite person that I had ever encountered and she has only become more my favorite over time. I think my most favorite thing is her humor. During our time together that weekend we had some epic deep conversations and Marisa always blows me away with her profundity, but she also makes me laugh harder than even my funniest guy friends. Her humor, to me, is a lot like Arrested Development (the show) or South Park. It’s crazy witty, but also kind of twisted and weird. I usually laugh the most when something catches me totally off guard and it just feels so bizarre that I can’t help but laugh. That weekend was filled with that kind of stuff and it really was the perfect (and only) way to end the sabbatical.

“… feel natural and safe in a volatile place”.

Really I had no reason feeling so natural and safe during the sabbatical. There was a ton of unrest in the world, friends and family that we know were experiencing some hard times, and the economy was totally tanking. But isn’t that the point of sabbatical and Sabbath? Somehow we believe that in the midst of all of the tragedy and chaos of the world God is still in control and loves us and wants to instill in us a poise that can only be found by experiencing the “peace that transcends all understanding”. I’m not naïve enough to think that I’m not going to have times of stress and fatigue and doubt in life, but the sabbatical showed me “a perfect space” can be found even in the midst of all of life’s volatility and disorder.

“You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Psalm 16:11