Remember the Sabbath

Sabbath

“…In the silence of our praying place we close the door upon the hectic joys and fears, the accomplishments and anguish of the week we have left behind.  What was but moments ago the substance of our life has become memory; what we did must now be woven into what we are.

On this day we shall not do, but be.

We are to walk the path of our humanity, no longer ride unseeing through a world we do not touch and only vaguely sense.

No longer can we tear the world apart to make our fire.  On this day heat and warmth and light must come from deep within ourselves.”

                                                            “Welcoming Sabbath” from Gates of Prayer

                                                            New Union Prayer Book

            Today is the Sabbath in much of the world.  A day sanctified as “holy” by God.  A day intended for rest and contemplation.  How many of us understand that “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” was a commandment in the top ten—right up there with “honor your father and mother” and “thou shall not kill.”  Today, in America, millions of people will use the Sabbath to go shopping, mow their lawns, do their taxes and in general, work.  I am not exempt from this.  I can’t remember the last time I simply laid down my work and spent Sabbath lying on the porch swing reading a book.

            Our perpetual busy-ness is giving us dis-ease; everything from peptic ulcers, to heart attack and stroke, to depression.  American’s are almost incapable of simply being.  I wonder why?  When I ask myself that question, the answer comes back that I am not of value unless I am producing something useful.  The puritan work ethic is still alive and well in me.  

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, An Altar in the World, devotes an entire chapter to “the practice of saying no.”  She equates the loss of Sabbath with the rise of consumerism.  Sabbath day or not, it’s business as usual.  Saying no to the day to day obligations---the lawn mower, the grocery store, the email and social network, the cell phone, the kitchen stove---makes us itchy just thinking about it.  What would happen if we turned off our cell phones for one whole day---shortness of breath?  Would the world come to a screeching halt?  Would God love us less if we were lazy?

Today, I invite you to set aside some time---even three hours will do---to do nothing but rest.  Take a nap or sit outside and listen to the birds singing; resist the urge to jump up and get going.  Be with yourself, and allow yourself to come to a full stop.  Who knows what might happen.  My porch swing is waiting, y’all.

                                                Keeping it holy,

                                                Jane