Sabbatical

When I had my first sabbatical at the institution where I now teach, a faculty colleague advised that I should arrange a flight to a European city during the first week of classes so that I would appreciate the sabbatical. I did then and I do now.

That first sabbatical I spent some time travelling around Puglia visiting churches with 14th C Byzantine frescoes of Jesus as Sophia and taking photographs of them.  I worked these images into an article I presented to the Byzantine Studies association with mixed results. But the time I spent in southern Italy that September was wonderful. A sabbatical spent writing an article for publication...

Decades later, here I am in the first week of school working on a website to accompany this book. A priest friend working in the west of the country has just told me that he will look at the website _before_ he reads the book for good resources. If that isn't an incentive to make the website as inviting and as useful as possible, I don't know what is. In fact, it's something all authors should keep in mind even as we publish in traditional formats. And something publishers ignore at their peril.

Back to the sabbatical...