Seven year sabbatical

Facebook reminded me on May 6th that it was the anniversary date of the start of my "3-month" sabbatical in 2013. I had actually forgotten all about it.

I'm sure most people who know me know that those 3 months never ended. The week before I was supposed to return as a pastor I was informed the church council didn't want me to. They offered me a nice severance package, and that's the last I heard from any of them. Other than the one council member who delivered the message (who used to be Jane's "best friend"), not a single one of them has spoken to me since early May of 2013. Still.

Anyway, I had thought I was pretty much over the whole thing. Like I said, anniversary dates from the only church I ever pastored come and go without notice anymore.

For some stupid reason though... I decided to search my blog archive and see what I was writing at the time. It says that I started a paper journal about the sabbatical, so I checked my stack of journals and, sure enough, there it was. Boy was that a mistake!

I had forgotten just how bad things were when I started the sabbatical. Actually, how bad things were leading up to it as well. Oh my.

It was thrown together rather quickly after I started seeing a counselor in late February. He said I was on the verge of needing hospitalized for a mental breakdown. I was burned out, depressed, paranoid, OCD, and a host of other things. He suggested I would need 12-15 months of counseling, and needed to either quick my job or take a sabbatical. And that was the good part!

In reading through my scribbles, I soon realized I had completely forgotten the board's behavior BEFORE I even left. How we had agreed on my pay during the sabbatical, and then the very next day - 4 days before the sabbatical was to begin - the board chairman calls me and says no one wanted to say anything at the meeting, but the board actually WASN'T going to pay me that much! Then on my last Sunday there, the board chairman wasn't at church, and none of the other board members would speak to me. Only one of them - Jane's "best friend" bothered to even keep in touch with us at all over the next 3 months. That eventually stopped too.

What is even more ironic, and almost comical, is that one of the main people responsible for the whole mess is now actually the pastor of the church! You can't make this stuff up. People are strange.

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My paper journalling only lasted a couple weeks at that time. It seems so weird that I'd completely forgotten all of that. I suppose I've forgotten a lot over the past 7 years.

As I think about it now, it really just makes me sad. How did things get so bad? Why did I stay so long? What else is there that I am totally unaware of now?

I did mention in the journal how sad I was that I wasn't going to be there - just for a summer - when the grandkids went to church. And it makes me sad that none of them are even aware that I used to be a pastor. At one time I was a nice guy, with a respectable job. I know that I can still choose to be nice or not, and my job is irrelevant to respect... but, man, that was one terrible dark time in my/our lives.

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A few years ago a friend was planning his own sabbatical from church and he asked if I had any advice. I told him I was the LAST PERSON who should be giving advice about sabbaticals. He said, "So you think I should get things in writing then?" Ha! Yes!! ALWAYS get things in writing - even with people you think are your friends. I'd say that's about all I learned from the experience.

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Every now and then I still get asked if I think I will ever return to preaching, or leading worship, or church work of any kind. And every now and then I think it's a possibility. But after reading just a few pages from my journal today... I don't know. I wish I hadn't done it (read the journal). I thought I had gotten over things and healing had taken place... But that's a pretty deep wound. It's a God-sized wound... and one that only God can heal. So it's not really even up to me...

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You know, I intended to write about this today, but I thought it would be quite positive. I thought I was in a pretty good place. I guess that's the danger in reading old journals. Dang. Sorry for such a bummer post.