{"id":5475,"date":"2015-01-26T10:55:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T10:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=5475"},"modified":"2015-01-26T10:55:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T10:55:10","slug":"writing-sabbatical-and-the-departure-of-the-prodigal-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2015\/01\/writing-sabbatical-and-the-departure-of-the-prodigal-son.html","title":{"rendered":"Writing Sabbatical\u2014and “The Departure of the Prodigal Son”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sorry: my absenteeism at this intersection can be attributed to a number of things lately, the most pressing of which is my forthcoming book with author and Christian addiction specialist Jonathan Benz. The book (Prodigal Church <\/em>or a version of it) is now officially under deadline and by April 1 I’m to have a manuscript to the publisher (which we will announce shortly, with a hard decision pending). So I’m having to take a writing “sabbatical”\u2014although that term makes the next few months sound misleadingly restful and enjoyably languorous, like sipping cappucinos in a Paris coffee shop while penning poetry. The reality is that I’m a bit under the gun.<\/p>\n

So regrettably we won’t catch each other here hardly at all during the next couple of months….but I’ll be back.<\/p>\n

For the time being, here’s a poem, “The Departure of the Prodigal Son,” by the poet Rainer Maria Wilke, an excerpt of which will appear within the pages of Prodigal Church\u2014<\/em>and which asks the question “What drives you to go forth?”:<\/p>\n

To go forth now<\/em>
\n from all the entanglement<\/em>
\n that is ours and yet not ours,<\/em>
\n that, like the water in an old well,<\/em>
\n reflects us in fragments, distorts what we are.<\/em><\/p>\n

From all that clings <\/em>
\n like burrs and brambles–<\/em>
\n to go forth<\/em>
\n and see for once, close up, afresh,<\/em>
\n what we had ceased to see–<\/em>
\n so familiar it had become.<\/em>
\n To glimpse how vast and how impersonal<\/em>
\n is the suffering that filled your childhood.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, to go forth, <\/em>
\n hand pulling away from hand.<\/em>
\n Go forth to what? To uncertainty,<\/em>
\n to a country with no connections to us<\/em>
\n and indifferent to the dramas of our life.<\/em><\/p>\n

What drives you to go forth?\u00a0<\/em>
\n Impatience, instinct, a dark need, <\/em>
\n the incapacity to understand.<\/em><\/p>\n

To bow to all this.<\/em>
\n To let go–<\/em>
\n even if you have to die alone.<\/em><\/p>\n

Is this the start of a new life?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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