(With the exception of my husband, who knows that he plays a role in this essay, any reference to persons is purely fictional, a composite of life situations and personalities I have come to know over life.)

I watch my academic husband prepare for a sabbatical. Lucky Dog. His institution allows full-time, tenured faculty, every seven years, a whole semester off from teaching. (To my layperson’s eye, this luxurious practice in higher education is rife with ethical dilemmas not the focus of this essay, dilemmas such as tenure limited to a few faculty while many adjunct faculty in schools across our country teach five, six, seven courses for pittance and no benefits. I don’t know what to do with the inequity, but I do appreciate my spouse’s benefit).1. So Michael talks with me - over a morning of Sunday coffee - about short stories to be written and articles to be published. He is counting the months until that seventh year, actually his fourth-cycle seventh year. (You do the math.) In my tired Sunday state I understand his desire for sabbatical. Respite from the deluge of work preparation and public discourse.

I know the word Sabbatical. My years in pastoral theology taught me about Sabbath and the beauty of the cycle of seven. In the Genesis story of creation, on day seven, God rested. While Jews and Christians have debated about the exact day of the Sabbath (again, too much for this essay), historically both agree that one day out of seven is unique. A day of rest. However the day is honored, the bottom line is clear. The one day is for rest. Here is another important fact. In the Hebrew Bible, the Sabbath year, not just the seventh day, is announced. 2. A whole year for rest. According to ancient text, slaves bound in servitude are released every seventh year. Land that has been sown with seed for six years is given a year to rest in fallow renewal. Any agricultural scientist knows the imperative to replenish nutrients. And so I assume that somewhere in the Judeo-Christian strain of Western civilization, because of this motif of seven-year renewal, the sabbatical for academics was born. Every seven years, a sabbatical is declared: a release from the strain of grading and facilitating the learning of young minds.

I watch my academic husband prepare for a sabbatical, and I am aware that he works to justify the leave. He writes a proposal. He must name the end goal, the intended outcome, the project that will direct his days during the four-month period. As he talks, my envy gives way to a small wave of sadness. This. Is. Not. Sabbatical.

Sabbatical means rest. Sabbatical means receiving energy and strength after it has been poured out. Sabbatical means that the dry sponge is dropped in a pool of cool water to absorb and to fill until the dry pores are brimming to saturation. I watch and wonder if the kind of sabbatical my husband must plan will be simply one more stretch of quantifiable productivity. Will he become more weary in the task of earning institutional approval? The product may change - a short story written instead of a class syllabus. But still, this weary academic is being asked to pull one more rabbit out of a hat. I am fairly certain that some kind of spreadsheet and report will factor in at the end of this sweet, four-month project.

This essay is not written to expose the weariness of my spouse. I imagine I could insert any other name of any other academic in any other institution of higher education and would come up with a profile of exhaustion. I could be writing about public school teachers on a ten-month contract who are asked to attend training in July. I might write of the young college grad piecing together a paycheck between several small bit jobs. I could write about my own strained attempts at a weekly sabbatical. Sundays filled with meal prep, email checks, laundry just to keep from drowning in another week. The fact of the matter is, the American worker is bone dry, gasping on fumes of fuel after a 70-hour work week of three part-time jobs in a gig economy. I am no economist. I offer no solutions here about tax codes and minimum wage. But I do offer a perspective that the human body, mind, and spirit must rest. This is an imperative woven into the fabric of existence.

I recently ask a spiritual directee, Where is the well that you drink from? When you are spent, poured out, cracked from the draught? The paradox is that she ticks off activities that she does (or should do). A day to visit a family member. An exercise routine. I give her the benefit of the doubt that in doing these things she is filled. But as I press further, I realize that in her weekend margins, she is siphoning water out of dry gullies. Her flat affect confirms that her reserves are spent. These plans for more exercise are simply one more attempt at justifying herself. This does not feed her. She seems so dry that her tears surprise me. I can’t imagine that a person so empty has anything left to weep.

I want 2020 to be a Sabbatical year for all parched souls. Ironically, in order for that to happen, the thirsty worker does have to make the sabbatical plan. Yet the plans do not have to be complicated. And it does not have to involve any kind of spreadsheet! Sabbatical simply demands intention. A morning for the walk. An investment in conversation. A regular time of meditation. An internet-free weekend. A simple, no-prep meal of bread and cheeses served on a pretty plate. A snuggle with the dog. A date night of candlelight. A dance party in the kitchen. An hour of quiet. A playdate in a blanket fort with a child. Ten deep breaths of cold winter air. Shavasana pose on the yoga mat. A sketch-pad doodle on the back of a grocery list. The end-result is not important. What matters is the mindful moments of simply being.

I know my spouse will pull off a beauty of a sabbatical project. Each sabbatical cycle, he has finished a piece of art, published a story, and one time even remodeled a kitchen! But this time my prayer is for his filling. It is my prayer for all of us. This world is weary. Spent from our striving. Poured out with projects. The January ground is fallow. Empty. Like all souls after a season of relentless work. Lay yourselves out. Receive.

Landy, Benjamin. The Century Foundation. September 17, 2013. https://tcf.org/content/commentary/graph-dont-blame-teachers-for-rising-college-tuition/?agreed=1
Leviticus 25:8-13

The Radical Sabbatical: Daring to Rest