As you are reading this, I will be on vacation enjoying some time with my husband and daughter before she goes off to college. I will be doing my best to “disconnect” from the usual busyness of work and other responsibilities and I am looking forward to the Sabbath time. Scripture tells us to “Remember the Sabbath.” Remember that everything we have is a blessing. Remember to stop and offer thanks for the wonder of life. The assumption being that we will forget and given enough time we do. In his book, Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest, author Wayne Muller says: “Long ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. This consecrated time is available to all of us, regardless of our spiritual tradition. We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. Sabbath time is time off the wheel, time when we take our hand from the plow and allow the essential goodness of creation to nourish our souls.” In many ways, we have lost the rhythm between work and rest. Our society often reinforces that action and accomplishment are better than rest; that doing something is better than doing nothing.
I know that I am not good at doing nothing. I easily become impatient when I am forced to do nothing such as when I need rest when I am sick. Remember the Sabbath. The body needs rest to heal from illness and from exhaustion. Muller says, “Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season, the plant begins to die. A period of rest—in which nutrition and fertility most readily coalesce—is not simply a human psychological convenience; it is a spiritual and biological necessity. A lack of dormancy produces confusion and erosion in the life force. When we act from a place of deep rest, we are more capable of cultivating what the Buddhists would call right understanding, right action, and right effort.”
As the summer months begin, residents have shared with me that they are leaving for cooler climates or they are looking forward to family reunions or travel for rest and relaxation. Some have shared that even though they will not be going anywhere to escape the heat, they will find moments of Sabbath on their morning walk, in prayer or worship or in moments of silence. In some way, my friends, may you remember the Sabbath this summer and find restoration and renewal for your soul.*
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