Reclaiming Sabbath

Our journey into Sabbath- keeping came when our first visit to the Lost Canyon retreat center in Barksdale overlapped with the discovery of Wayne Muller's book, Sabbath, about four years ago. The time at Lost Canyon was the first vacation we had taken that was not filled with visits to relatives or sight-seeing amusement.

It was, in a word, Time. Time to ourselves. Time to wake up or to lie down at any hour. Time to "waste" wrapped up in a book, observing turtles in the pond, or gazing at the stars through flames in the fire pit. Time to eat, or not, and to savor even the simplest flavors fully. We experienced that week "timeless time" - a baby-step into eternity. The taste was so deliciously exotic, so foreign to what we had known, we had to have more. Seeking a Sabbath practice became that more.

We decided to carve out two different three-four day retreats per year for this type of semi-annual Sabbath as a family. Time to be…not to do. Our anticipation of these retreats feels like the water pressing against a dam wall, longing to be free. The release into Sabbath comes first like a trickle finding a way through the packed earth as we load the car and begin the three hour drive. Our souls begin to shed the extra weight they have acquired in the last six months as our bodies yearn for the place of rest and refreshment. We arrive with our food, books, binoculars, and fishing poles, not sure which we will use, nor when. And when the cabin has become home, we sit down to a fire, a glass of sweet wine, bread and cheese - the Eucharistic elements of our ritual. This semi-annual Sabbath became the first tier of what has developed into multi-layered Sabbath observance for our household. Like a Mexican Plaza fountain, each successive level of Sabbath experience is filled by the overflowing abundance flowing from the reservoir above it.

The next level to emerge organically from our retreat Sabbaths was a desire to capture the spirit of Sabbath on a more regular basis - weekly. Because Rob is a minister, and since we homeschool our two daughters (14 and 12), we opted to make Fridays our Sabbath time. Rob endeavors to wrap up all his work before dawn on Friday; Lodie labors to bring the household chores to a close and secure some easy meal options for us to enjoy on Friday. We often share our ritual foods (bread, wine, cheese) sometime during the day together. Each one wakes at his or her leisure and floats like a leaf adrift in a stream into whatever gives them greatest joy - a bike ride, gardening, a good book, some creative project, a long meditative sit on the front porch watching the birds feeding. We have not developed hard and fast rules about what can and cannot be done. Rather we share an understanding that contentment with oneself and with oneself in God is most important. This is time to be - not time to do. Recently our eldest, Natalie, has opted to enter public school. This decision has forced us to redefine weekly Sabbath-keeping to a Saturday practice — a transition we have not yet fully made. At the moment we feel caught between the loss of the old practice (which had become so established that we felt much of the same holy anticipation on Thursday evening that we feel before the Lost Canyon retreats); and the "not-yet-here" of the new practice - which is still struggling to be born.

The third tier in this Sabbath fountain is the (almost) daily practice we have developed of sitting for about an hour on the front porch drinking a morning South American tea called mate. This is time to be still - Time to tap the living water of the other reservoirs in preparation for the busy-ness of the coming day. We often light pi–on incense, spray ourselves with lemon-eucalyptus mosquito repellent, and wait. We wait on each other, on the Spirit within us, on the unexpected neighbor who walks by, on the song of the purple martins, on the urge to pray…in our waiting, in our stillness, we touch the spirit of Sabbath and are filled again for the day.

Sabbath observance has thus become a three-tiered fountain of living water, each level overflowing into the next out of its abundance. However, we have discovered that failure to attend to the "upper" layers, limits our ability to draw upon the "overflow" and so nourish the weekly and daily Sabbath times. If the headwaters dry up, then the flow is halted. The levels of Sabbath observance are thus intrinsically tied to one another, and we have found that their capacity to restore our souls is directly related to our faithfulness in creating a rhythm of rest with space for the Spirit of God at all these levels of our lives. Sabbath is time, time to be and time to be still.

Rob and Lodie Mueller, who contributed this piece, live in San Antonio, where Rob is a Presbyterian minister.

A Day of Disconnecting

The Sabbath has a reputation for stern rules centered around denial. It doesn't have to be that way, nor is there much evidence God intended it that way. Moreover, the things we may choose to "deny" ourselves on the Sabbath are the very things that deny us access to what many of us secretly desire: peace, quiet, time to pray, time to be alone, time to be with loved ones. Following are some ideas for creating Sabbath time – in this case, on a Sunday, though of necessity or preference some may choose another day (or even a shorter span of time, though a day seems to work best.)

Don't work.
This is fundamental, derived directly from the commandment. The Jewish system evolved an endlessly complex set of rules about what constitutes forbidden work. For us, a remark attributed to Peter Pan may serve just as well: "Work is what you're doing when you'd rather be doing something else."

Disconnect.
When the telephone was first introduced, a friend told Oscar Wilde it was just the thing for a man with so many friends. Wilde asked, "How does it work?" "Well," the friend replied, "a bell rings and you go down the hall to see who's calling you." "Oh" said Wilde, "just like a servant." Are we masters or servants of our "conveniences?" Sometimes it's hard to tell. Try unplugging the computer, the TV, pagers, and, yes, all the telephones, of every kind. It may be hard to imagine, but it can be done – and after some initial complaining, your family will adjust. In fact, all of you may come to crave your disconnected day. It can be wonderful. Perfectly wonderful.

Don't shop.
Shopping is now the number one leisure time activity of Americans. It is a hard urge to resist. But shopping consumes a huge amount of time and energy (to say nothing of money). Furthermore, if we shop someone else has to work to sell us something, and the commandment clearly calls for a Sabbath that extends to everyone.

These three "don'ts" have some value in themselves. More important, however, is that they clear a space we can fill with things that have enormous value.

Pray; spend time with God.
This need may or may not be met by church. Ironically, church can turn Sundays into a work-day like any other: getting up early to get the kids ready, touching base about church business with a half-dozen people before the service, fulfilling responsibilities during worship, meeting with a committee(s) after the service…you don't get home until two in the afternoon, already weary! We all admire people who are so "involved." You won't gather much praise for saying "no", even for the purpose of carving out quiet time on Sunday to listening for that still, small, voice. Do it anyway.

Spend time with family and friends.
Not just quality time: quantity time! Time enough to really relax, have extended conversations, play "in the present moment" with your children or grandchildren. One of the most deeply rooted Jewish Sabbath traditions is the Friday evening family meal – a time for the best china, the best food, the best wine, and meaningful conversation. Try this on Sunday.

This is just one of many possible approaches to a Sabbath time; with no rules about it in contemporary Christian churches, one is free to be creative. It can be a bright, joyful, time, or it can be solemn and contemplative when that is called for. The key is in making it a time apart from the ordinary, and prayerful in every case. Honor the commandment and, as Abraham Heschel says, you may find that after a time you do not keep the Sabbath – the Sabbath keeps you.

Tom Taylor came up with the concept for this insert and did much of the research and writing.

A Day of Remembrance

For Jews who observe Shabbat, it is a precious gift from God, a day of great joy eagerly awaited throughout the week, a time when we can set aside all of our weekday concerns and devote ourselves to higher pursuits.

Shabbat is primarily a day of rest and spiritual enrichment from sundown Friday until nightfall on Saturday (beginning at sunset because in the Genesis account "there was evening and there was morning, one day"). The word "Shabbat" comes from the root Shin-Bet-Tav, meaning to cease, to end, or to rest.

Shabbat is not specifically a day of prayer. Although Jews do pray on Shabbat, and spend a substantial amount of time in synagogue praying, prayer is not what distinguishes Shabbat from the rest of the week. Observant Jews pray every day, three times a day. To say that Shabbat is a day of prayer is no more accurate than to say that Shabbat is a day of feasting: we eat every day, but on Shabbat, Jews eat more elaborately and in a more leisurely fashion.

In modern America, we take the five-day work-week so much for granted that we forget what a radical concept a day of rest was in ancient times. The weekly day of rest has no parallel in any other ancient civilization. In ancient times, leisure was for the wealthy and the ruling classes only, never for the serving or laboring classes. In addition, the very idea of rest each week was unimaginable. The Greeks thought Jews were lazy because they insisted on having a "holiday" every seventh day.

We are commanded to remember Shabbat; but remembering means much more than merely not forgetting to observe Shabbat. It also means to remember the significance of Shabbat, both as a commemoration of creation and as a commemoration of our freedom from slavery in Egypt.

By resting on the seventh day and sanctifying it, we remember and acknowledge that God is the creator of heaven and earth and all living things. We also emulate the divine example, by refraining from work on the seventh day, as God did.

From the website www.jewfaq.org, by Tracey Rich. Used with permission.

Sabbath Resources

• Holiness. Donald Nicholl. (Paulist Press, pb, $11.95).
  Although only a small portion (pp. 77-79) of this book is directly concerned with the observance of a Sabbath, the entire text is a clear, direct call for conscious living, with Sabbath as a central element. One remark is particularly noteworthy for those who think they cannot possibly keep up without working on Sundays: "Even though some tremendous undertaking may be on your programme for next week, and for which you feel inadequately prepared, do not so much as think about it. . . . The best preparation for any undertaking whatsoever is being at peace with God."
• The Sabbath. Abraham Joshua Heschel. (Noonday Press, pb, $10.00).
  Heschel goes even further than Nicholl: "The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living." Heschel describes the central place of the Sabbath in Jewish spirituality in a book that, though short, is too dense and rich for casual reading; it is worth the time and concentration required.
• Sabbath. Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. By Wayne Muller. (Bantam, pb, $14.95).
  An interesting and provocative guide for creating a Sabbath practice within our culture. It ties together many strands of contemporary American spirituality.
• Website: www.jewfaq.org
  An excellent site devoted to Jewish traditions. Although many Jewish customs will seem alien and overly complicated to contemporary Christians, there is also much wisdom to draw upon in creating a personal Sabbath practice.