Settling In to the Pilgrim Mode

June 5, 2007

It's the second day of my sabbatical time, and I am slowly adjusting to a life without many meetings and deadlines. The main focus of my first week of the leave is simply to become prepared for that which is to come. Laura and I visited our travel agent yesterday and received all of our travel documents that apply to our South Africa pilgrimage. We've done a little shopping. I have been busy making important contacts with people in Detroit, South Africa and New York. Especially, I have begun reading in more earnest.

The book that had been strategically placed on the top of the stack is Reconciliation: Restoring Justice, by Dr. John de Gruchy, a professor at Cape Town University who is world-renowned for his work in restorative justice. This book is considered his "signal contribution" to public theology. It's very challenging and rewarding reading, helping me to recognize the centrality of reconciliation in Christian faith, world view, and practice. Restorative justice is not an option for the Christian, reconciliation with God casts the believer to seek reconciliation with other persons, reconciliation between social groups, and reconciliation to be realized politically, as the quest of the nations. All this is a process or journey toward which God is leading the world. Thus, the vision which has driven my interest for this pilgrimage is central to my faith and ministry.

Tomorrow I am to meet with Dave Law, Rev. Charles Boayue, and others at the Joy-Southfield Community Development Corporation's Health and Education Center. This is a ministry that was begun by Second Grace United Methodist Church and in which First United Methodist Church of Northville has been very much involved in developing. I have hoped to spend some time there while it is in operation. It seems like the perfect place to start my experiential pilgrimage. I expect that my global pilgrimage will lead me back there after the sabbatical is over.

So, the sabbatical has begun! As it turns out, these days are not simply a time of preparation. Through the reading and the conversations I am already having, a personal transformation has already begun.