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