I love the beauty in nature and when ever I walk, something is sure to catch my attention, and if I have my PhoneCamera with me, I take a few pictures, perhaps trying to hold unto that moment just a little bit longer by taking a bit of it back home with me.  I don’t want to leave the beauty of that moment behind, the stillness, the quiet, the serenity, it just fills me and nourishes me spiritually.

As a parish priest there are times I long for that stillness, that oneness with nature and with God, to put everything aside and be in that moment. As I imagine Jesus walking along the shores of Galilee, along the sea of Capernaum with the crowds following after him, clamouring around him wanting to hear more of the good news he was teaching of the Kingdom of God, listening intently to what he was saying, yet perhaps questioning too in their minds, but still wanting to be ever near for what he might teach them next, how physically as well as mentally taxing it must have been.  To feel such need from the people around him and want to feed that with everything he had to give to them, in word and action.  Jesus would often go away alone early in the morning or after a tiring day to be by himself, and he tells his disciples in the gospel to do the same. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while, For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat”, it says in Marks gospel (6:31). Jesus was intentional about taking that time to refresh, for renewal, and his directive to his disciples was that they should do the same.

As a priest in the church today it is not something I have been intentional about, and while I give of myself greatly to the ministry, my greatest failing has been self-care.  During this past year I left a very large and busy parish, and while I appreciated the ministry I had there and gave everything I could to it, it came to the pointthat I could no longer continue giving in the way I had been doing, not for lack of will, of not wanting to, but it was impossible for me to do so without suffering the consequences of long-term burnout.  Already feeling burned out from stress incurred through my work, long hours, and pastoral fatigue, as well as emotional and physical exhaustion from having no time for myself or my family, I had to leave my position or there would be no coming back for me.  I knew my ministry would be over, not because of what anyone else had done to me, oh there were contributing factors to it, but mainly because of what I had done to me.  I had not cared enough about myself to insist that I too needed to be taken care of, and that meant taking the time to rest, taking the time for family, taking the time for self-reflection as well as spiritual reflection. Truly, how can we really care for others, if we don’t first take care of ourselves.

Yes, there will be times when people will reach out and support you in ways that are very helpful, bringing you food, helping to get things done, but the time away, the time to refresh as Jesus calls us to do, must be time alone.  “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

To take that time we have to step away from work, we have to step away from caring for awhile,  step away from being that person everyone else comes to, and allow God to tend to us.

Last evening as I walked the trail in the community I now live, pausing along the way to reflect on the beauty in nature, the vibrant colours of the foliage on the pathway,  the plant and animal life and how it too seem to sense God’s presence for it was there, in the sereneness, the stillness, in the beauty. As the sunlight filtered through the treetops reminding me of Christ shining as the light upon the pathway of my life. I reflected on my life over these last months, and how I now feel about my life and where I am now.

It hasn’t been all easy for me, leaving a place and people I knew so well, to go to an area that I knew very little about or the ministry and people there, and the uncertainty that comes along with that; but God has been good, and I think I am finally starting to find my way.  I am still in parish ministry only quite different then I had been in my previous parish, much smaller parish, quite busy at times, but overall a less demanding and a more relaxed ministry. And as I learn my way here, I also know a part of that is unlearning some of the things from the past,  and learning to take better control of my own life, in learning self-care.

It has been a slow process because I haven’t been too good at doing that in the past. At first it almost felt foreign to me to take that time for myself, I had become so consumed by my work it almost felt like I was having withdrawal sypthoms, my mind kept going into work mode.  But as I made the effort more and more, to take that time to read, to go for a walk, to sit quietly, to just not think. I realized too just how much I needed it, and feel much healthier both physically and spiritually for doing so.

And so I give God thanks for quiet and peaceful moments, for time to reflect, and for calling me away from time to time, to be by myself in a deserted place. For there I commune with God, and feel his presence so ever more near.

“As a deer longs for water, so my soul longs for you, O God”(Psalm 42.1)