Skip to main content

Thoughts on Observing the Sabbath

In her book Leaving Church, Barbara Brown Taylor writes that part of what Sabbath looks like for her is living as though all her work is done. I like this as a guiding principle for Sabbath observance. I would set next to it the principle of doing the opposite of what I normally do, as a way to bring balance and rest. Since I spend much of the week sitting and looking at a screen, Sabbath for me might include walking around outside for a while. Since I spend my work days doing mentally taxing work, Sabbath might include mentally restful activities: doing puzzles, playing board games, or reading something light and entertaining. Perhaps most pertinent for me, since I spend most of my waking hours trying to improve myself, Sabbath must include rest from that heavy labor and the willingness, for twenty-four hours at least, to call my self good. To know myself to be beloved as I am.
True Sabbath requires an interior rest, the cessation of the inner striving to do and be more than I am right now. This means letting go, for one day, of projects, plans, agendas, new ideas, cravings for possessions or pleasures, and the desire to be productive. It means letting myself and the world be. In practice, it means recalling my mind each time it tries to run down these familiar channels, bringing it back to the present moment, and reminding it that, for this day, all is well. It means giving the body, mind and spirit the rest they need to be refreshed and ready to take up the work of becoming human again for another week.
For six days we work to bring about the kingdom of God on earth. On the Sabbath, we celebrate its arrival.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Casual Holiness

About a year ago I was on my way into a church to attend a meeting. As I approached the door I passed a woman sitting on a red, overturned milk crate near the door. She had dark hair, and she was leaning forward, her bottom coming off the crate, her hands reaching just off the edge of the sidewalk and toward the asphalt of the parking lot. She appeared to be slowly falling forward, tumbling off the crate in slow motion. I had stopped to hold the door for a man who was entering the church just behind me, and as I watched, he approached the woman on the crate. "Here's two of them," he said, handing down a carton of Marlboro Light 100s. "Have a good day." I realized then what the man with the Marlboros must have recognized immediately: the woman had no doubt been reaching for a discarded cigarette butt that someone had tossed down on their way into the church. I felt awed by the man's simple act of compassion. Without the slightest trace of judgement or distast...
2 comments
Read more

A Sabbath Day

I am thinking of the mulberries we picked today,           nearly black knobby fruits,           their juice spilling so easily from thin skins. I held a branch down while you picked them double-fisted,           dropping them into the empty bottle where they crashed,           spurting tiny jets of juice. The girls ate them by the handful,           stuffing the dark sweet berries into their small mouths,           purple smears like bruises blooming on their hands, legs, cheeks. We had hoped for ice cream but were foiled,           and returning from that failed trip           we found the trees, dangling their fruit in offering. We ate, and it was good. It was very good.
1 comment
Read more

The Heart of Religion

Yesterday I read a short reflection in Plough  magazine about a woman who, according to the author, "was a neighbor...to every person who crossed her path." This woman's example impressed on me the idea that the sources of one's devotion--religious doctrine, methods of prayer and meditation, forms of worship, theological convictions--are peripheral to the work of love to which all human beings are called. One implication of this idea is that if my particular form of devotion is not making me a better neighbor (or parent or partner or friend or community member), then it is not worth pursuing. I am reminded of Jesus's Parable of the Good Samaritan , narrated in the Gospel of Luke. Part of the point of that parable is that the good Samaritan was a Samaritan , and not a Jew. The source of his devotion, his religious milieu, differed greatly from that of Jesus and his listeners. Yet Jesus insisted that this religious outsider grasped the heart of religion more clearly...
Post a Comment
Read more