We’ve returned to the USA in time to celebrate the 4th of July in the region where our country got its start.  During this vacation time we’re spending time reconnecting with friends and family in Boston, New York City and Washington DC.  Mid-month we’re Seattle bound.  And then, one final week to digest, reflect, and connect with family in Cannon Beach, Oregon, before returning home to West Seattle.

Erik returns to Peace on Tuesday, July 29, and will preside at worship on the first Sunday in August.

Rome, the Eternal City.  Chris has wonderful memories of lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel during a private tour when she was a girl, traveling with her family on their way back home from Ethiopia.  And then, during college years, reconnecting with Father Martin Nolan once again during a 5-month college study tour.

Early Christian sites are high on the list here, signs of the pre-Constantinian church, and perhaps an opportunity to greet Pope Francis — if only from afar.  A side trip to Sorrento along the Amalfi Coast includes a day at Pompeii, and then a return to Rome for a final weekend before boarding the plane bound for Boston.  Sabbatical ends.

What a journey!  What a blessing!  Thank you for helping to make it happen; thank you for your prayers; and thank you for traveling with us along the way.  We can’t wait to hear about your own sabbatical adventures.

This week, one more trip, this time north by way of Ravenna, to Venice, a unique experience in a unique city, including a hoped for tour of the famous glass works on the Island or Murano.  Then, its ALL ABOARD once more, on the train bound for Rome.

June begins with a four-day sojourn in Florence, cultural capital of the Renaissance. Then it’s off to a second agriturismo, this located outside of San Gimignano.  Here we reconnect with the Via Francigena pilgrimage route to Rome, and will take walks from one small village to the next, while spending nights at another Italian farm, Podere Poggio ai Cieli.  Leaving the farm on June 12th, we head northwest to the Italian coast, via Pisa, Lucca, and the Cinquiterra.

This week marks the transition from France to Italy.  We travel via train from southern France to Tuscany, province of Arezzo, where we begin a weeklong stay at a working Italian farm (agriturismo) near Castiglion Fiorentino, in the Arezzo region of Tuscany.  The farm will be our home base for their first week in Italy.  Day trips to nearby Assisi, home of St. Francis, as well as Siena are planned.

From May 18 – 23 the schedule is loosely defined.  A stop at Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is planned, and Erik plans to rent a road bike for two days of more robust cycling along roads made famous by the Tour de France.

The story of the small of Protestant Huguenot farming village of Le Chambon in the mountains of south-central France is compelling.  When France capitulated to Germany in June of 1940, the fate of French citizens and foreigners of Jewish ancestry was in doubt.  That very day, Pastor Andre Trocmé stood in the pulpit of his parish church to address his parishioners in Le Chambon:

“The responsibility of Christians is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on their consciences, through the weapons of the spirit.”

Over the course of WW 2, the approximate 5,000 inhabitants of that valley and surrounding areas sheltered approximately 3,500 Jewish men, women, and children (in addition to 1,500 others) in direct opposition to the orders of the French Vichy government and Nazi occupation forces, for the duration of the war.  When Vichy authorities demanded that Pastor Trocmé cease his activities, he told them:

“These people came here for help and for shelter. I am their shepherd. A shepherd does not forsake his flock. I do not know what a Jew is. I know only human beings.”

Eventually, Trocmé was forced to hide from the Nazis.  But his wife continued his legacy and with the aid and encouragement of local residents many Jews resided in relative calm until the end of the war.  This story is powerfully documented in the film by Pierre Sauvage Weapons of the Spirit.  (Sauvage was born in Le Chambon and returned years later as an adult to try to understand what happened here and why.  Follow this LINK to view his interview with Bill Moyers about the film.)

Just before beginning my sabbatical, I (Erik) had the good fortune to exchange emails with Patrick Henry of Whitman College, a Holocaust scholar, who put me in touch with Nelly Trocmé Hewett, daughter of Andre and Magda Trocmé.  (How we got to that point is itself a story that I’ll tell more of some day.)  She told me of the existence of a new museum in Le Chambon, ( I thought they’d all closed), dedicated last summer (2013) that tells the story of what happened here.  Her words, received only days before we began this trip, made the prospect of being in Le Chambon infinitely more meaningful.  Le Chambon was not alone in its righteous conduct during that trying time.  A dozen or so communities small communities of the region shared in the ministry of sheltering Jewish refugees, at the risk of their own lives, thus embodying Jesus’ admonition, “Love your neighbor as your self.”

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Following our time in Le Chambon, we will travel south to Arles and use it as a home base for experience the history and culture of the Provence region before heading on to Italy.

Leaving Paris on the 14th, we stop at the Cathedral at Chartres, to experience this medieval masterpiece and its famous labyrinth.  Then it’s on to Blois for a four-day family cycling adventure among the châteaux’s of the Loire Valley, including one, Château de Cheverny, which was the inspiration for Captain Haddock’s country house in The Adventures of Tintin, by Belgian author Hergé; a series beloved both by Kai and his elder brother Nathan.

“All roads lead to Rome.”  Beginning in the early Middle Ages, the Cathedral at Canterbury, England, became a starting point for the pilgrimage road from England to Rome that became known as the Via Francigena. Our next pilgrimage arc on this sabbatical journey begins here in Canterbury, and takes us on a ferry across the English Channel to Calais, France.  From there we take a detour from the pilgrimage road, and go by rail to Paris, where we spend five nights in the “City of Lights” at a flat adjacent to Jardin du Luxembourg, the second largest public park in Paris and its most popular.

With the Gaultney home at Thane as our base, we’ll explore London, experience Shakespeare, walk stone circles, and take in the wonderful variety and rich history which is England.

The third leg of our UK pilgrimage takes us by car from Edinburgh to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) and on to Durham.  In 635AD, in response to the request of King Oswald of Northumbria that missionaries be sent to bring the Christian gospel to his people, St. Aiden was sent from Iona to establish an Abbey on what would later become known as the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne.  We’ll spend one night on the island, timing their arrival and departure to the rhythm of the tides.  Then it’s on to Durham, where the bones of another Holy Island saint – Cuthbert – were finally laid to rest after a long and storied journey.  [Eldon Olson, retired (but not tired) pastor and member of Peace, spent two years with Marcia and family in Durham completing his doctorate.  He’s an excellent source of more of the rich history of this era in Northumberland’s history and the characters that make up the drama.]

Along the way we hope to connect with the Northumbria Community, a contemporary Christian community that’s part of the new monastic movement, whose motherhouse is located between Holy Island and Durham.  Finally, we head south via train to the home of our friends the Gaultneys, who live in Thame, outside of London.