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.