Took A Sabbatical

If you gaze deeply into the fuzzy navel of Western Thought, you will find a bearded dude in robes rationalizing away his own idleness. So when Tim Regan explains why he took a six-month sabbatical from his job as an insurance litigator to study medieval philosophy in Rome, it’s not surprising that he quickly lugs out the Aristotle and the Aquinas.

Regan began considering taking a sabbatical in 1988 when the new firm he joined drew up a progressive deal offering each partner a six-month paid sabbatical once every seven years. But, almost twenty years later, he was the first one ever to take his partners up on their offer.

“It’s been an enjoyable career—professionally, intellectually, and economically.” Regan says. “You get to ask all sorts of questions. But what you don’t get to ask are questions like, ‘Why is Western civilization the way that it is?’ ”

After having a stroke in 1999 at the age of fifty-one, he briefly considered early retirement, but decided to enroll in a master’s program in Catholic studies at the University of St. Thomas. As a former philosophy major at the University of Minnesota with a law degree from Stanford, much of the reading was familiar to him. He was happy to take a class or two each semester without any urgency to finish his degree. It wasn’t until he was presented with the opportunity to take a semester in Rome that he took a page from another great philosopher—Yoda: Do or do not. There is no try.

Much of the actual pre-doing fell to his wife, Jenni, a Harvard- and Stanford-educated housewife. “I spent a year just getting everybody used to the idea we would be leaving.” Then they had to find a place to stay in Rome and somebody who would rent their house.

Everything worked out. They ended up subletting a lovely apartment in Rome’s historic Trastevere District (“Cleopatra used to live across the street”). Tim studied in Rome’s cafés (“amazing coffee”) and the Vatican’s library while Jenni kept herself busy exploring ruins, walking, and writing letters home.

“The root of sabbatical is sabbath,” Tim explains, “which means ‘a dedication of time.’ ” Surrounded by Rome’s jasmine and orange blossoms—can you think of a better place to stop and smell the flowers?