A few thoughts on the sacred practice of Sabbath in our lives right now
“A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines — they are a way of sowing to the Spirit. The Disciplines are God’s way of getting us into the ground; they put us where he can work within us and transform us. By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.”
“The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees—
to learn something of being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention”
Our lives have hit a new level of exhaustion. In addition to my new full-time job at a digital marketing company in downtown Austin, our kids are full-throttle finishing high school, beginning college and new career paths. Brian is working full-time as an Executive Pastor while attending seminary and navigating all the economic realities of a cross-country move to this overly expensive boomtown. On many days, the spiritual practice of Sabbath rest sounds like a sarcastic joke.
The truth is, we moved to Austin to pursue Brian's ordination, relationship in a vibrant, healthy worship community, and an introduction to creamy jalapeno sauce in response to God’s clear invitation. We received the life of parenting these four amazing children as an undeserved, lavish gift. The job that takes me back into the corporate world, is not only helping us stay alive financially but also bringing me so many unexpected, delightful relationships with Austin’s techie, tattooed, twenty-somethings. Is it possible our exhaustion is the result of too many gifts? Am I asking God for a break from giving us too much goodness?
I’m learning that the prayers aren’t “God, please give me less goodness”, but instead “God, please increase my capacity to receive and steward your goodness within the boundaries of your unforced rhythms of grace.” The goodness of God rightly received, brings maturity to my capacity for fruitfulness.
Growing up requires me to recognize that good gifts come with responsibility. My having to work full time, or lose sleep over my kids being flung hither and yon into adulthood, or deal with anxiety related to becoming a priest's wife, or roll up my sleeves to invest in this healthy worship community, or start eating more vegetables and fewer tacos are all decisions grown-up people make in order to steward the abundance of good gifts that come down like lights from the Father. Only a child wants it both ways: good gifts with no responsibility.
My hope is to remain like a child with simple faith and pleasure in my good Father while also becoming a grown-up in the way I respond to the things that feel overwhelming. I go back to the place of sowing to the Spirit in the act of spiritual disciplines, getting into the ground where God can do the work of transformation in me.
This fall Brian and I and a couple of friends are co-leading a new small group in our neighborhood. We'll focus on one spiritual discipline each month, starting -- appropriately -- with the practice of the Sabbath. I realize that many of my ways to grasp for "rest" are not at all the same thing as Sabbath rest.
According to Adele Ahlberg Calhoun’s definition in the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, in practicing Sabbath, we desire to set apart one day a week for rest and worship of God.
The first month of our small group we focussed on Sabbath practices. The month is over but I'm not letting go. I need rest. Deep down in my soul. I need to be at peace with myself in the midst of real or perceived chaos. I think the Buddhists call this Zen.
I choose to believe there is a way of Christian rest. I believe the Christ who naps in capsizing boats follows the footsteps of his Father who takes days off even though the spinning universe depends on His attention.
“Sabbath is the time set aside to do nothing so that we can receive everything, to set aside our anxious attempts to make ourselves useful, to set aside our tense restlessness, to set aside our media-satiated boredom. Sabbath is the time to receive silence and let it deepen into gratitude, to receive quiet into which forgotten faces and voices unobtrusively make themselves present, to receive the days of the just completed week and absorb the wonder and miracle still reverberating from each one, to receive our Lord’s amazing grace.”
Here are a few of the suggested exercises from Spiritual Disciplines Handbook that our small group discussed:
1. Plan a twenty-four-hour sabbath you can enter with anticipation. The night before your sabbath, remind your body how long it has to luxuriate and rest in God.
Consider the things that would nourish you: worship, music, a nap, making art, walking, reading, playing with children, afternoon tea. Plan them spaciously into the day.
2. Begin your Sabbath gently on the evening before. Light a candle.
Invite the presence of Christ to guide you through your sabbath.
Eat with friends and family.
Go to bed early, speaking peace to one another.
Pray for Christ to give you deep, refreshing sleep. Rest in his arms. Commit your dreams to the Lord
3. Prepare a “sabbath box or basket.” Choose a basket or cover a grocery-size box with gift wrap. Each week on the evening before Sabbath, gather as a family or group of friends to put all the things you don’t need to take with you into Sabbath day. Drop cell phones, credit cards, laptops into the box. Put work projects and homework in the box.
Tell one another what you are looking forward to as you enter Sabbath.
Pray together to receive the gift of Sabbath.
4. The night before your sabbath day, enter into sleep as a spiritual act of worship. Consciously let go of your compulsion to be indispensable. Drop all that brings you anxiety into the arms of your heavenly Father. Lay your head on the pillow imagining that you are putting your head into the lap of God. Commit your body and dreams to him. Relax in God and rest.
5. Awake gently to your sabbath day. If it is possible, don’t set an alarm. Let your body wake naturally. As you come to consciousness, take several deep breaths and open your body wide to God for the new day. Stretch out and feel the full length of of yourself. Thank God that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Thank him for the gift of the day before you.
Is God speaking to you in any way? Listen and respond.
Get up slowly and attend to your desire to encounter God today.
A few of my favorite titles on the spiritual practice of Sabbath:
The Sabbathby Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath by Mark Buchanan
Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting by Marva Dawn
Sabbath As Resistance: Saying NO to the Culture of Now by Walter Brueggemann
A few Scripture passages to meditate:
Hebrews 4:1, 9-11
Mark 2:27
Exodus 20:8-10
so many Psalms
An archive I’ve curated of Songs for Rest:
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