Mid-Week
Sabbath
“Keeping
the Sabbath—doing nothing for a while—is one of the hardest things in life for
me; I’d much rather give up meat or wine or sex than the ability to check my
e-mails or get on with my work when I want to.”
Pico
Iyer (The Art of Stillness, p.53; TED Books, Simon & Schuster, 2014)
I had a
conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. She is going to France with a
group of friends in a couple of weeks—something she’s dreamed of her
whole life. But what she is doing right now is “freaking out.” She’s panicked that
she will leave something critical undone with catastrophic results, that she
won’t have enough clothes to last for two weeks (as though there are no washing
machines or clothing shops in France), that someone at home will need something
and she won’t be here to provide it, that her garden will wither and die, her house will
fall down, and so forth and so on. When we “workaholics” plan for a sabbatical,
instead of looking forward to it, we panic. All that time out of our usual
routine makes us feel untethered and vulnerable. We mark the days of our lives
by certain rituals and practices and when they are interrupted, we free fall.
Last
week I consulted the book, The Laws of Change (by Jack M. Balkin) that is a
new translation of the I Ching. I was in panic mode because my creative juices
have dried up and I can’t fill my days with busy work. In typical fashion, the
reading I drew had everything to do with waiting patiently. It clearly said,
“You must decrease before you can increase.” A full cup, in other words,
cannot receive more. Only an empty cup is available for filling. That was not
the answer I wanted, but it was the one I needed.
Pico
Iyer reminds us in his TED talk that the word “holy” is only applied to one
commandment in the ten big ones. That is to remember “the Sabbath” to keep it
holy. We are commanded to rest, to try our very best to do nothing for just one
day per week. Instead of “catching up” with all the chores we’ve left undone
until the weekend, we are asked (commanded) to rest from our labors. It’s not a
laziness factor—it’s a replenishment factor. The scientific research shows that
people function better, and are, in fact, more productive, not less, when they
take regular breaks to rest and escape from the constant pressure to produce.
Ironic, I know but none the less, true.
Today America
is back to work after a long Memorial Day weekend. Most of us are dragging
ourselves back to “the grind” reluctantly simply because we did not rest when
we had a chance—we played hard, we worked in our yards, we hiked a five-mile
trail, we finally painted that table on the porch. We did everything except
rest. Now, instead of being refreshed, we are tired. Don’t you think it’s time
to give this manic America another look? Our obsession with being constantly
productive is making us crazier than ever. Take a secular Sabbath this week—thirty
minutes a day, allow yourself to do nothing. Just sit and breathe. Consider it “holy
time.”
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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