Ready or Not...

I have upheld the Sabbath by my standards.  I will commit to the Sabbath if:

• I have had a productive week
• I do not have TOO many things to do
• Not working won't put me behind THAT much
• The house is clean (ha, when does that happen!)
• If it's between these hours with these hours carved out to do some work still

You get the drift.  I commit to the Sabbath if it's convenient for me.
Wait for it...
I commit to the Sabbath when I think I've earned it.  There I go again, carrying the whole burden of endless responsibilities on my shoulders.

Thank God for His Wisdom.  I do not have to earn the Sabbath.  In fact, being reckless about the Sabbath has much value.
I am listening to the voices of those much wiser than I--more than that, I am breathing in their freedom and living to their heartbeat:

"The rest of God...is not a reward for finishing...It's a sheer gift.  It is a stop-work order in the midst of work that's never complete, never polished.  Sabbath is not the break we're allotted at the tail end of completing all our tasks and chores, the fulfillment of all our obligations.  It's the rest we take smack-dab in the middle of them, without apology, without guilt, and for no better reason that God told us we could" (Buchanan The Rest of God)

"Sabbath is more than the absence of work; it is not just a day off, when we catch up on television or errands.  It is the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most deeply beautiful, nourishing, or true.  It is time consecrated with our attention, our mindfulness, honoring those quite forces of grace or spirit that sustain and heal us" (Muller Sabbath).

"Isn't that the point?  To stop in the middle of everything, not just when it's all done?"  (Dave--the husband, While Driving)

"Sabbath is not dependent upon our readiness to stop.  We do not stop when we are finished.  We do not stop when we complete our phone calls, finish our project, get through this tack of messages, or get out this report that is due tomorrow [or plan for the week, or grade from last week, or read the assigned readings, or finish my master's work or clean the house or ...].  We stop because it is time to stop.  Sabbath requires surrender" (Muller Sabbath).


Sabbath IS surrender.

Sabbath is SURRENDER.

This is paradoxical.  I have to rest in God's mysterious ways to work through contradictions.  By not working, my work in the end will be more meaningful, productive, effective.  Through choosing not to work, I am trusting that in the end, I will produce more work.

You see, it is impossible for a teacher to accomplish all he/she needs to accomplish to be ready for the next week.  We are in a perpetually state of "behind."  Constantly catching up.  I constantly battle with: that if I don't work on the weekend as much as I need to, than I will be behind.  But is that true?  Really?  At its essence?  Or do I trust, surrender, that consecrating time for what truly matters--my God, my husband, my home, my heart, my body--is far more beneficial, though mysterious?

I keep drifting towards these Scriptures as I think of all this:
"...give, and it will be given to you.  Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap" (Luke 6)
"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind" (Ecclesiastes 4).

And so this week, I did not do any work all weekend.  We cleaned our house on Saturday.  And then Dave and I spent time Sunday practicing the Sabbath.  And it was..........

perfect bliss wrapped with a bow of beauty.

Sabbathless Musings

In case you haven't noticed, we have not been practicing the Sabbath as of lately.  A cornucopia of Excuses flutter through my mind even as I type this:  Vacations, Family Visits, Camping Trips, The Start of the School Season, Grad School.  Joining the Excuses are the Defenses and Half-Truths: Camping is Kind of a Sabbath, Half Day Sabbaths are OK, Right?, We'll Start Again Next Month, Practicing Because We Have to Isn't Honorable.  And you see, they all deserve capital letters, well, because they have been Running my Life.  (Even as I type this, I consider the irony that Run is missing only one letter from Ruin...)

Oh yeah, it's a party of misery in my head, and misery sure loves company. 

This is the company I have been keeping since not practicing the Sabbath faithfully:

• I've become god again.  I am the self-reliant beast that glares back at me in the mirror.  The fate of my school rests on my shoulders.  The pressure sets, doubling my heart and mind over in fear and anxiety.  If I don't do this, think this, perform in this way...then the very outcome of a school I've committed to, a program I've invested in, and the students I've fallen in love with will implode.  Poor Mary, that's quite a burden you choose to carry.
• I've lost mental track of what's important.  What consumes my mind 100% of the time?  My job.  What keeps me up at night in apprehensive tension?  My job.  What saps me of the Love I receive and the love I give?  My job.  What drowns out the call for intercession, the inspiration to live in a prayerful world where I am not the only one with needs and wants?  My job.  The Sabbath was a pair of spectacles I wore for a much needed perspective...that "the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
• My life is defined by objects (and ironically objectives), the what's and how's and by's.  Instead of the who's.  The Sabbath ensured I treasured the gift of companionship--at home, in my family, at my job...and within.
• I've lost the discipline and inspiration to run.  I'm not sure the connection here, but I would be a fool to suppose that it doesn't exist.
• Guilt is my best friend...again.  He often joins me, but the Sabbath was a way of consistently sacrificing his presence at the altar of His Presence.  Now I practically nurse in his lap.

And so, somehow, someway, I repent.  I will commit to the consistent practice of the Sabbath.  Again.  Soon.  Somehow.

For which I address you now, dear reader, dear God, interrupt the circus of foolishness, clowns, and demons in my head, and remind me of what's of the most worth...

The Practice of Saying NO: Mary

Hi! 

Remember us!  We're the ones who have devoted a year of practicing the Sabbath in an effort to draw closer to our own souls, each other's, as well as God's soul.

We're also the ones who have fallen of the blog-planet as we know it.  The summer has been a whirlwind of daily Sabbath decisions and commitments, but few weekly ones.  One primary reason is that I have been out of town so much; is there such a thing as a traveling Sabbath?  That might be another post...

My summer is winding down, and the return of the whole-reason-I-started-practicing-the-Sabbath is upon me:  the school year.   I approach the year with a certain amount of dread.  The running joke between Dave and I is: "see you in 9 months."  

I'm.
not.
okay.
with.
that.
Our marriage is not okay with that.
Nor do I think God is okay with that.

It is a holy thing to give myself wholly to my job.  It is after all, a calling to me; a ministry if you will.  However, it is not holy to be a martyr for my job.  To lay myself on the altar of teaching.  So this year, I must learn balance.  The art of saying no.  The practice of saying no.  The discipline of saying no.

What I must remind myself--dare I say we all must remind ourselves--is that every yes has a hidden no entangled beneath its outer glossy shell; saying yes always means saying no to something else.  Saying yes to one more task at school is saying no to more time with Dave; it is saying no to my marriage. Saying yes to my boss for one more contribution is saying no to my own soul time; it is saying no to my relationship with God.  Saying yes to one more responsibility at work is saying no to my home, my pets, my health.  Thank God we don't have kids; I only fear how many times I would have said no to them in the past three years of my teaching career. 

And so, I hold to the words I have poured into my thirsty mind and soul this summer:

"God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by subtracting."  Meister Eckhart
"A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity."  (emphasis added) Karl Barth
"Test the premise that you are worth more than what you can produce..." Barbara Brown Taylor

In the end, I surrender to the paradoxical conviction that saying no more at work--in other words, practicing daily Sabbatical choices--will make me a better teacher.  Rooting myself in Inspiration unleashes my own pedagogical fire.  Building an honorable marriage is a good example.  Being full of the Real, the True, allows me to overflow with love to others.  And that after all, is exactly the kind of teacher I want to be:  inspiring, loving, a role model.   

Mary: An American Sabbath?

As an International Baccalaureate teacher, I have the fortunate ability, along with my students, to explore the deep-seeded and oft hidden motivations of a culture.  As of late, many of my classroom conversations have centered around America's obsession with "more."  More money.  More youthfulness.  More fame.  More beauty.  More effort.  More technology.  More words.  More possessions.  More work.  More noise.  More suffering.  More rewards.  More distraction.  More destinations.  Divorces.  Upgrades.  Downloads.  More.  More.  More.

I'm tired just typing that.

But, then, I ponder...isn't the idea of "more" what drives our society?  America is a capitalist culture (God bless America, and give us M.O.R.E!), and capitalism is built on the very idea that what I have right now is not good enough, thus I--we--work harder to earn more.  And dang it, if I dare think it is enough (Gasp the thought!), well thank the good god of Moreness that there are commercials and billboards and Internet ads to tell me how untrue that is!  Businesses are built on this excessive exertion of energy.  And sadly, I think, so our churches.  Perhaps that is another post...

But I fear that this economic and healthy (?) perpetual pursuit of more has seeped into the seat of our souls.  More religious events.  More spiritual activities.  More shallow hallowed be thy names and thy kingdoms of busyness come.

But I have some questions disturbing me lately...
Where is the less in blessed?
Dare I say, where is the emptiness?  
The utter abandonment to the still and quiet nothingness where Everything can be found?

I wonder if I have even drawn near to that holy emptiness yet.  Nearly 5 months of consistent Sabbath keeping, and well, even on Sundays I'm looking for more.  If I sit on my couch and enjoy the sun, eventually it's not enough.  If I lay in bed and rest my eyelids and heart, soon the questions about what to do next creep in.  When making dinner, I'm constantly thinking about the next. moment.  In other words, more.  More is always there, even on Sabbath.

It is almost as if the Sabbath for me has been this adventure skiing, where I have stood at the top of the mountain in utter snowy stillness, but yet have refused to dive off the cliff on a blind, downhill race into an unknown abyss.  I will go this far; but no farther.  I cannot surrender to the emptiness.

I'm not OK with this.  And quite frankly, I'm a little peeved that my country's culture is dictating the matters of my heart and my God.  And I can't relinquish this haunting voice of Wayne Muller:

"This is one of our fears of quiet; if we stop and listen, we will hear this emptiness.  If we worry we are not good or whole inside, we will be reluctant to stop and rest, afraid we will find a lurking emptiness, a terrible, aching void with nothing to fill it, as if it will corrode and destroy us like some horrible, insatiable monster.  If we are terrified of what we will find in rest, we will refuse to look up form our work, refuse to stop moving.  We quickly fill all the blanks on our calendar with tasks, accomplishments, errands, things to be done--anything to fill the time, the empty space.
But this emptiness has nothing at all to do with our value or our worth.  All life has emptiness at its core; it is the quiet hollow reed through which the wind of God blows and makes the music that is our life.  Without that  emptiness, we are clogged and unable to give birth to music, love, or kindness.  All creation springs from emptiness.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form, and void..."

Dave asked this too, on a previous blog.  So much is to be said about this...this...unwillingness to let go and just b.e.  Do I consume myself with being more, with being enough, even on Sabbath, so that I can't just dive into the unknown abyss?  Can't I let myself be OK with a void, so as to be the birthing place of something new and glorious and wondrous and beautiful?

Is the only way to M.O.R.E. through less?

Through nothing?

The Nuts and Bolts

Inevitably, I knew we would face the how-to's of Sabbath.  It is not enough to just wake up on Sundays with a mind to be different from the other 6 days.  We need a plan.  We need guiding principles.  Today, I'd like to reflect on those.

Guiding Principle #1.  The Sabbath cannot be a different me.

I've been finding that the Sabbath is the highlight of my week, and rightly so.  But it is also becoming the distinguishable highlight of my holiness.  Not rightly so.  Of course on Sabbath it is easy to be loving, to be at peace, to hold my tongue from the wrathful things it can say, to silence my mind from the mean-spirited perpetual criticalness.  But what is that?  It means nothing.  After all, it is easy to avoid fighting when not on the battlefield.  But how I live the other 6 days is more important than how I live on one day called Sabbath!  Thank God, I'm coming to this place where I see how there is a disconnect between who I am on Sunday, and who I am the other days.  I'm not ok with this.  I'm sure those around me and Him whom I serve is not either.

I confess that I am condemning, of myself and others.  I confess that frequently I do not use the power of language to build others up, but rather to tear down.  I confess that fear consumes my heart and anxiety my mind.  I confess the terrifying paradox of insecurity and arrogance.

The Sabbath must be a different day from the rest of the week.  But I shouldn't be.  Oh hypocrisy!

Guiding Principle #2. A Sabbath mantra by which to live.

Cease from what is necessary.  Embrace that which gives life.  (Buchanan, The Rest of God)

There are many things to do on a Sabbath.  And many things not to.  How does one choose between those options?

I'm finding it appealing to live by the aforementioned mantra.

Do I have to do it?
Then no, don't do it.

Do I want to do it?

Then, yes do it.  And love it and laugh it and live it and linger it.

I've heard many accounts of the stifled, legalistic households of Sabbath, where people couldn't even turn on a light or take a walk.  I do not want Dave and I to become that.  After all, Sabbath was made for us, not us for it.  Thus, we should grasp at whatever gives the thumping heartbeat of life, and toss aside whatever steals the thrill of living in a moment.

Guiding Principle #3:  Waste time playing.

"Play is subversive.  It hints at a world beyond us.  It carriers a rumor of eternity, news from a kingdom where Chronos [the enslavement of time] and utility are no more welcome than death and Hades and the ancient serpent.  When we play, we nudge the border of forever"(Buchanan, The Rest of God).
"Maybe all the other virtues of childhood--trust, humility, simplicity, innocence, wonder--are not separate from a life of playfulness, but the fruit of it:  that apart from cartwheels and kite flying, leapfrog and hide and seek, snakes-and-ladders and digging for buried treasure, all those other things wither"(Buchanan, The Rest of God).

Our house has been awfully quiet the last couple of Sabbaths.  We gathered around 500 puzzle pieces while listening to Classical music.  We spend time on our couch reading and meditating to the tune of our gentle wind chimes.  We lay down and cuddle and nap in the middle of the day without guilt.  It's been good.

But it's been unbalanced.  We need some adreneline on a Sabbath...the stuff that makes our heart thump and our soul smile.  Climb some 14ers.  Ski.  Take a road trip.  Hike for the best picture spots.  Eat ice cream next to a babbling brook.  Play Twister.  Challenge at tennis.  Swim and lounge in a hot tub.  Laugh til our belly hurts.  Scream while dropping stories on a roller coaster.  Swing at the park.  Play.  Like little kids.

There is something...
so...
so...Sabbath about that.

falling prey to the routine

So it's been almost 2 months now. Things have gone very well. It's really nice to have an excuse for nap taking and reading. I've noticed some things that are frankly a little disturbing. Although I have been really enjoying the physical rest that sabbath brings, it seems that unwittingly I have stopped there. It has been hard to discern, but I feel as though non-sabbath thinking has crept into the sabbath. What I mean is this. A pattern has been developing: wake up, meditate and journal, eat, nap, read, make dinner, play games, bed. Overall not a bad way to spend the day. The problem enters when this becomes the routine every sabbath. While going through this routine I have found myself giving over to the mindless task of doing, not being. As I'm doing one thing my mind is already ahead, anticipating the next. This is not the key to mental and spiritual rest. This is a dangerous game for me, to subtly revert back to everyday thinking. It allows me to achieve physical rest, but the mind still desires multitasking and unnecessary obsession. Am I so afraid of what i might find in true silence and stillness?

A Familiar Whisper from a Stranger

"Sabbath is a stranger you've always known.  It's the place of homecoming you've rarely or never visited, but which you've been missing forever.  You recognize it the moment you set eyes on it.  It's the gift that surprises you, not by its novelty, but by its familiarity.  It's the song you never sang but, hearing it now, know inside out, its words and melody, its harmonies, its rhythm, the way the time quickens just before the chorus bursts.  It's been asleep in you all this time, waiting for the right kiss to wake it."

Mark Buchanan The Rest of God

This Moment Alone

One of the blessings--and greatest struggles--of practicing the Sabbath is practicing mindfulness of this moment.  It is so opposite of the career I have and the kind of person I am.

As a teacher, my success hinges on the ability to predict and plan for the next moment--who will struggle?  who will be bored?  how long left til the bell?  who will need encouragement?  who will need celebration?  who will need redirecting?  how can I change this lesson?

How do I turn that mind off on Sunday?  Let me tell you, it's a challenge!  Here's a typical mental battlefield through my thoughts dodge as I sit on my couch and try to be in this moment alone...

When should I start dinner?
What's Dave thinking?
Am I ready for school tomorrow?
When should we nap?
Should we take the dog for a walk after we get up?
Should I run later?

You get the point.

Sure, we can schedule a day to partake in worshipful rest...but did my brain get the memo?  Hardly not.

I think this endless mental striving is one of the curses of our 21st century.  After all, we live in a society where multi-tasking is a talent, busyness is success, and silence is sinful.  Who in their right mind is in this moment alone?

And that is the point to which I arrive today.  Perhaps being in this moment is not about the right brain.  But we all have two sides to our brain...don't we?  And couldn't we ALL use a little more left brain?  Time to create.  Time to imagine.  Time to bathe in beauty.  Time to applaud chaos and exalt unknowing.  Time to ask questions without demanding answers.  Time to get lost in the details and surrender the big picture to Supreme Artist.  Time to just...be...

I desperately need time in this moment alone.  I need to honor my left brain more.  For I commiserate with these words:  "Being in a hurry [is my biggest regret in life].  Getting to the next thing without full entering the thing in front of me.  I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry.  But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all that rushing"  (Buchanan, The Rest of God)  Being in a hurry makes me look and feel more productive (a mere illusion), sure...but in the end it leaves me--and I imagine those to whom I connect--empty.

So on a recent Sabbath, I stopped.  I sat in a moment alone.  I stopped waiting for the next.  It was a forceful and wondrous snowstorm which transfixed my view.  And my left brain celebrated the tiny beauties and melodious paradoxes I witnessed.  I captured them.  In a poem.  I created. 

"Now"

I sit in a Sabbath snow globe

listening to the silent, still, secret snowflake whispers.

The snowfall suffers confusion,

first tumbling vertically to the earth, then

stolen and sidetracked by sweeping thieves of wind, 

finally swirling and twirling around the centurion pine--

who rises as a centennial axis.

The graceful carousel of quiet nothingness eternally spins.

Must the snowfall have a direction to fall?

Or does it just...

Fall?

Be?

Surrender control and blur into white identity.

There is no next moment; only now.

A million small, lacy snowflakes scramble

outside the glass pane.

A million nows.

Rest...or Die: Mary

Rest...or Die.
Harsh title, I know.

Yet not as harsh as the words Jehovah spoke to his people in Exodus 31 (version, The Message):
God spoke to Moses: "Tell the Israelites, 'Above all, keep my Sabbaths, the sign between me and you, generation after generation, to keep the knowledge alive that I am the God who makes you holy. Keep the Sabbath; it's holy to you. Whoever profanes it will most certainly be put to death. Whoever works on it will be excommunicated from the people. There are six days for work but the seventh day is Sabbath, pure rest, holy to God. Anyone who works on the Sabbath will most certainly be put to death. The Israelites will keep the Sabbath, observe Sabbath-keeping down through the generations, as a standing covenant. It's a fixed sign between me and the Israelites. Yes, because in six days God made the Heavens and the Earth and on the seventh day he stopped and took a long, deep breath.'"

Practice the Sabbath...or perish.
Invest in a day to stop...or suffer isolation.

Now, I'm quite certain the literal components of this passage would fire a passionate debate (which is of no concern to me right now), so I'm going to go figurative.  It seems to me here that this is one more place God demonstrates his omniscience.  Humanity does not have an off button naturally.  We will go until we're sick, dead, or both.  Especially in this modern time, when during one tiny breath of time, we can be working, communicated with someone on Facebook, watching the news, eating lunch, Googling, and texting our spouse about picking up dinner.  Go. Do. More. Yes. Sacrifice. Strive.  An endless string of pressing concerns chokes our lives.  Rest...or die.  How many of us are dying of business?

Wayne Muller comments on our fatal gluttony for business:  "A 'successful' life has become a violent enterprise.  We make war on our bodies, pushing them beyond their limits; war on our children, because we cannot find enough time to be with them when they are hurt or afraid, and need our company; war on our spirit, because we are too preoccupied to listen to the quiet voices that seek to nourish and refresh us; war on our communities, because we are fearfully protecting what we have, and do not feel safe enough to be kind and generous; war on earth, because we cannot take time to place our feet on the ground and allow it to feed us, to taste its blessing and gave thanks" (see below)  A life lived with no rest, no pause, no stillness is a life of violence: destructive to our souls, dangerous to our loved ones, deadly to our bodies, debilitating to the innocent bystanders of our incessant striving.

So yes, there is no question that God's warnings about Sabbath for his people are harsh.  Rest...or die.  Stop...or suffer isolation.  But it is easy to see how these admonishments are for our own good.  Rest...or die, because our physical selves suffer from non-stop going. Stop...or suffer isolation, because our relationships (sometimes even those within the same household) are diminished by our constant output of energy.  (Ironic, no?  You think in a society that is more connected than ever isolation would not occur?!)

I work a job that demands at least 60 hours a week and 100% of my mind and heart.  I have a house that is constantly dirty.  I have a marriage that cries for cultivation.  I have furry pets who need walking and feeding.  Thank God, literally, for His gift of a weekly off button.

When was the last time you pressed yours?

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.  ~Thomas Merton

Wayne Muller's Sabbath book...

Another One...

Though I will be posting more later, I just have to say that already (not even two chapters into it), I am profoundly affected by this book.  If you are keeping up with this blog, you will be hearing a lot about it!

Wac-a-Mole and a Sabbath Heart: Mary

The scene is a bedroom.

Sabbath morning. Sleepy eyes. Muted dawnlight. Awakening mind.

WAC!

And that would me, brutally annihilating thoughts of work that are popping up across my mental landscape. My body has not even risen from the warm covers, and already I am inundated with worries, anxieties, plans, questions, reminders...on and on the list goes.  Wait, this is supposed to be the Sabbath!  No work thoughts.  No worries.

And so the Sabbath work begins.  Yep, I said it.  Sabbath takes work.  It is challenging to create the rhythm of rest. Ridding my brain of the burdens of responsibilities is reminiscent of that carnival game, Wac-a-Mole.  Just when you pound down one sinister mole who is grinning at you with mockery, another pops up in his place, taunting your incompetency to squelch their annoying presence.  And so it goes with my thoughts of work.  Lesson planning.  Grading.  Student worries.  Lesson planning.  Conversations with colleagues.  Grading.  Position security.  Negative complaining.  Lesson modification.  Vindictive politics.  Mole.  Wac.  Mole.  Wac.  There I lay, swinging away with that foam bat, out of breath, and I haven't even risen for the day yet!  Paul was not kidding when he used war language to describe the mental battlefield:  "Take captive every thought..."

How many of us have our lives ruled by thoughts of work?  Our lives are dictated by a job that is suppose to be our livelihood, yet in the end--though it fills our bank account--it repletes our soul.  Mine has.  It has consumed me, distracted me, tired me.  I want to work to live...not live to work.  And that is one more reason I need the Sabbath.  I need to stop, and then notice, get this, that the world does not stop with me.  It goes on.  It survives.  I am not the axis on which this globe spins.  So why do I live like it?  Why do I consistently feel the pressure that God has reserved for himself alone?

Not any longer.  Sabbath is my pause from work, but more importantly, it is a break from the arrogance that consumes my life.  The arrogance that says I have to do it all alone.  All perfect.  All the time.

Which ties into my next thought for this week.  Monday morning as I was driving to work, I felt the strenous tension rise through my legs, through my shoulders, through my heart like the heat of an attack.  Not 24 hours removed from the Sabbath, I am already consumed with anxiety for the impending week.  And I thought...why does the Sabbath end?  Yes, my habits, actions, and activities change; but my heart can remain in that stillness of Sunday, that serenity of Sabbath.  And that is what I really want from this year.  A Sabbath day yes.  But God, please give me a Sabbath heart.

The Beginning - Dave

So when Mary first brought up the idea of participating in the Sabbath I wasn't quite sure what to think. "The Sabbath". It just sounds weird, immediately bringing forth images from "Fiddler On the Roof" with everyone scrambling around to get things done before the sun sets. That was definitely not for me. After reading a few chapters on the practice and talking it through I decided maybe we should try it. After all, how bad could it be setting aside a day to just take naps, read, worry about nothing except how I'm going to spend time with my wife? And then some of the realizations hit me. We had laid down a few ground rules. No TV, no internet, nothing that would allow us to fill our time up but not force us to relax and let our brains de-stress. This is when it dawned on me the gravity of the situation. No TV I can do, but we're doing this on Sunday. Yes Sunday, the day the NFL plays. That would mean no football, no Bears, no Colts, and worse yet we weren't doing internet. I wouldn't even be able to keep up with games online, let alone check my fantasy football stats. Hmm. Now I'm not some crazy fantasy geek but football is one of the only sports I'll arrange my schedule to watch. Wasn't quite prepared for that. We came to a compromise. I would only pick one game a week to watch. It had to be chosen beforehand and if it didn't happen to be on cable, oh well. I didn't think too much about this as the Bears are a dumpster fire and the local team is almost as bad. I hadn't really been watching too much anyway. This was about two weeks ago. Before it occurred to me that not only the playoffs but the biggest game of the year was coming up. There's nothing like a little test just to see how committed you are. If I miss it though, I miss it. I'm not scrapping this thing just to watch grown men in tight spandex pants manhandle each other.
So despite my apprehensions, and there are some, I'm pretty excited about this. It will be interesting to see how it affects areas of our lives that we haven't even considered. It's daunting to think about how I now have one less day to get things done around the house, run errands etc. At the same time it's exciting to think that I now have an entire day that I have permission to read and nap. We'll see how long it takes to get rid of the guilt resulting from our protestant work ethic. This is going to be an interesting and rewarding journey.

The Beginning: Mary

Don't you hate those books?  You know, not the cozy books you snuggle with in your bed.  Not the comical books which incite chuckles and giggles.  Not the brainless books which are devoured in an hour.  I'm talking about those books which cause tiny quakes in the earth beneath your feet.  Your world shifts.  Your heart breaks.  Your eyes water.  Your shame rises.  And you know, you just know, you cannot remain the same after the turn of these pages.  Well, one of those books is how this all started.

If you're wondering what this is, well so am I.  Which is why I love journeys; you need nothing figured out except with whom you're journeying.  And so I start, a step towards God, a step with my husband, all on this journey called A Year of Sabbaths.  If you're wondering whether or not we are Jewish, I respond no.  We are just two people trying, and failing, and trying some more, to give and receive God's love in a whirlwind of a life.  It seems love is born of a restful heart, and well frankly, my heart is anything but.  Hopefully I will say differently at the end of this year.

If you're curious as to the culprit book that got this party started, well it is entitled Sacred Rhythms (see my entry entitled Rest-Full Reads for a link to the book), but I have entitled it The Book That Started It All...Darn It.  My best friend Tammy and I spent last year reading, discussing and trying to practice the spiritual disciplines described in this book.  And while all along I was challenged and overwhelmed, something really snapped for me when I encountered chapter 8:  "Sabbath: Establishing Rhythms of Rest and Work."  And when I say snapped, I don't mean it in a negative way. I tend to be a reader, not a doer; snapping brings about change in my life.  I'll save some discussion on what impacted me so much for a later entry, but for now I'll summarize by saying, "Uh-oh, things have to change."

And so here we are, January 9th, 2010.  Tomorrow we practice our first intentional day of rest.  Not rest as in sit-my-lazy-rear-in-front-of-the-TV-and-mentally-check-out (previous definition for me), but rest as in no technology, no participating in the American economy, no work,  no activities which stress my heart, soul, and/or mind.  I'll read my Bible.  I'll journal.  I'll spend time focused on Dave, instead of just with him.  I'll read a book.  I'll nap.  I'll light a candle and just sit.  I'll eat slowly, walk slowly, think slowly.  I'll relax in our home and enjoy the sunshine that dances off the mountainsides.  I'll enjoy a long walk, or run, or both, or none.  I will NOT multi-task.  I will not think about work.  I will not relinquish power to the worries that be.  They have crushing control in my life 6 days of the week, but no longer on this 7th day...the Sabbath.

Rest-Full Reads