Like a Rolling Stone

Sabbatical Thoughts

Last week, after church, I met with our Lead Pastor and the church board to discuss taking a Sabbatical as I have been on staff at a church in some capacity since 2015. My identity is wrapped up in the title “Pastor” in front of my name. During this time of Sabbatical, I intend to step back and experience being a congregant/parishioner for a little bit, rather than being one of the pastors. I will not worry about the Sunday service and making things go off the way they should. Instead, I will sit in a pew somewhere and receive. I am unsure what this Sabbatical will result in. I am allowing myself to be open and led during this time. In many ways, it feels like stepping out into the desert.

As I left the church last week, I did something a little different than what I usually do when driving alone. Most of the time, I’d turn on whatever audiobook I happened to be listening to, but last week I turned on Spotify and played my “Vibes” playlist. That playlist has everything from pop punk to classic rock to modern hits to folk songs and so much more. Its ecclectic and I never know what will come on when I hit “play.”

The song that played ended up being surprisingly fitting for the start of my Sabbatical journey, and I imagine it will continue to play in my head (and on my radio) throughout my time away. Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone.

This song might not seem like the usual Sabbatical song. It’s not exactly the gentle soundtrack one might hear in church (unless you’re listening to Brian Zahnd’s Finding God in the Music sermon series). It’s also not necessarily a comforting song. It doesn’t exactly sing of a holy rest. If I am honest, though, I am unsure this Sabbatical will be a holy rest. That will for sure be a part of it, but as I mentioned above, I believe there will be a lot of desert time. Time of searching, wondering, wandering, seeking, asking, and listening. I don’t believe this Sabbatical will be a vacation, but rather, a stripping away. What does it mean for me to be me while stepping away from the title of “Pastor” for a bit? I am praying that this Sabbatical is a time of radical honesty between God and me.

This song repeatedly asks, “How does it feel?” How do I feel during this season of unlearning, dislocation, and, hopefully, courage to live without the familiar scaffolding of my identity? It asks me, how does it feel to step away from something so vital to my life? Like a Rolling Stone, as I drove away from the church building functioned like as a psalm of desert exile.

Dylan begins by singing about the collapse of a curated life. The subject of the song had status, security, and a sense of moral superiority. They knew who they were, where they stood, and how the world worked. Over the last few years, I have wondered who I am, where I stand, and whether the system I’ve been a part of really works the way I once thought it did. The subject of the song had their illusion cracked. I need this Sabbatical because my illusion has cracked as well. I’ve recognized the deep, deep cracks within the larger system I am a part of. My soul has not had the space to breathe and process that it has needed for a long time. This Sabbtical is an opportunity to step into the broad place where my soul can breathe deeply.

Like a Rolling Stone is not a song of loss in this season; it is also a song of liberation. “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” That line, often quoted, is not nihilistic in this case. It names a freedom that only appears after the cracks collapse. Sabbatical, for me at least, opens the same possibility. When I take the time to step away, I no longer need to defend a reputation, protect a role, or justify a trajectory. Honesty with myself becomes easier. I have time to process things without the lens of the system I am in. If this Sabbtical goes as I hope it will, I will be able to look truly and deeply within myself to discover more of who I really am and who I want to be.

Like my Sabbatical, the song does not offer redemption in conventional terms. There is no neat conversion arc nor triumphant ending. My Sabbtical is not a self-improvement project. It will not guarantee clarity, healing, or renewed purpose on a tidy timeline. It is a consent to not-knowing, a willingness to be seen without armor. In Christian terms, it is a participation in kenosis, self-emptying, not as an abstract doctrine but as lived experience. While I may find more of who I truly am, that may also mean I get even more lost in the desert. For now, that’s okay… finally.

The song’s refrain, “How does it feel?” is similar to the question that has deterred me from taking a Sabbatical before now. How will it feel? How it feel to take time to not be attached to a particular congregation? How will it feel to step away from the system I’ve known my whole life? How will it feel to step into a new place?

For this season I have stepped out on my own. This season is a purposeful time of having no direction, but rather listening to the whsiper of God to where I am being led. I will feel like I don’t have a home. I will feel like a wanderer in the desert. I will be out of a system where I am known and in one where I am a complete unknown. A rolling stone.