The Leaven Land & Housing Director and one of Salt & Light’s pastors, Rev Jules Nielsen, recently returned from a six week renewal leave. In this update, Jules reflects and shares on her time away.
‘How are you feeling?’ everyone’s asking me. I didn’t think I had expectations for being away from work for five weeks of renewal leave. It’s been a pretty hard winter, between leaving the United Methodist Church for the ELCA, making the shift to pastor after 15 years in diaconal service, some family concerns throughout the autumn, and of course that rain. I just wanted a bit of reflection. The thing about hard years (and 2024 was epically hard), is they move both too fast and glacially slow. Coming out of February, I barely knew which way was up.
I didn’t have any plans for the time, other than to kick off with a 10 day silent meditation course at my sangha in Onalaska, Washington. That retreat was a harbinger of how leave would go, ultimately. It was emotionally intense to the nth degree. Arriving home, it became clear I’d be spending March continuing the dreaded practice of feeling. Not feeling better, necessarily. That’s the thing about the gift of extended time. Without the distraction of work, all the feelings of the last season came to visit, and I had so much time to sit with them, to let them sit in me. Oh, what is this emotion gripping me on this random Tuesday morning? Grief, hello. What about? Well… could be nearly anything. So I’d pull out the sewing machine, meditatively mend some clothing and let the feeling ride through while the fabric passed between my fingers. Next day, more feelings would come knocking. Anger? There you are, let’s go be in the garden together a while and plant some spring seedlings while we figure out the source of this. And so it went, for five weeks.
I also had a wonderful time, of course. I wandered joyfully through the opportunity for abundant creativity and what Portland’s springtime offers. I cooked incredible blueberry pie and Haitian food. I finished the land story of my incredible 100 year old home, practiced my hobby of herbal medicine-making and foraging, soaked at Breitenbush hot springs twice, plowed through books on my mile high to-be-read pile in front of my fireplace, and sat zazen at my Zen Center on Wednesday evenings. I took three whole days to design an enormous collage depicting a dream I had while on retreat. I rediscovered my old love of archery and the underground Portland bow and arrow culture that gathers daily at Washington Park.
So how am I feeling? People seem to think my answer will be ‘better.’ I’m not sure that’s the best word. I do feel different, though. Richer. Clearer. More settled in my heart and my body. Time away doesn’t change the world within (or without, turns out), it just gives more opportunity for knowing. Knowing myself. Knowing how I want my time to flow. Knowing what it means to sit and be still and quiet when the world spins too fast. So yes, perhaps better. Definitely grateful for the time, and for the community that made it possible.
