A few weeks ago, the pastor preached a sermon on about the biblical concept of the Sabbath rest. Since I love the notion of a day off (and I so seldom seem to get one), I was immediately intrigued. Without repeating the entire sermon (available here: http://www.wethefc.com/pdf/2009pdf/09-06-09stPS(sabbath).pdf), let me just say that he included four elements of the Sabbath rest: Stop, Rest, Delight and Contemplate.
So far, I’d say that the hardest one is the first. Stopping my work means trusting that the time will given later (or earlier) to do whatever needs to be done. Since I probably work at least half of my weekends, the notion of stopping work on Sunday borders on the radical. I did it today, though. I have work that I could (and maybe should) have done, and I took the day off from work.
That said, I didn’t take the day off completely. I got up at 5:45 a.m. because I had to feed a friend’s cats (she and her husband are in Hawaii) before getting to church for rehearsal at 7:00 a.m. because I was on this morning’s worship team, which means that I sang three services. During the sermon time of the second service, I had to run home and get my inhaler because I was getting short of breath—it’s that time of the year. So, by the time I got home, it was nearly 12:30 p.m., and I fell into bed without even bothering with lunch.
When I got up two hours later, I was ready for my Sabbath rest. After lunch, I had lunch and puttered around on a couple of websites, exchanging e-mails with friends. Hovering in the back of my mind were a few things on my to-do list—not work things, but things I’d feel better if I did. So, I made a crockpot of chili, I dug up my rosemary and potted it to bring it in for the winter just in case we had frost again tonight, and I harvested my basil and made pesto. I emptied and filled the dishwasher. Nice, mindless things, all of them. I stopped, I rested. Good for me.
Except—did I? Because as I sat down to my chili, it occurred to me that I felt very satisfied about these little things I’d accomplished and the ones I would accomplish tonight, such as taking out the garbage and making space in the freezer for the chili. I may even fold the mountain of laundry while watching Drop Dead Diva and Army Wives tonight. Certainly, these aren’t taxing jobs; they barely rise to the level of chores. But they’re also not restful. And when I’m crossing items off a to-do list, can it truly be said that I’ve stopped and rested?
Not that I’m a fan of all those legalistic rules and regulations about what people are permitted to do on the Sabbath—worrying about compliance with rules hardly strikes me as restful. On the other hand, without some clear ideas about what will and won’t be proper Sabbath activities, it’s too easy to get to the end of the night with the same sense of “what have I accomplished” that I have on any other day. On the other other hand, just hanging out and playing solitaire on the laptop while watching television feels like a waste of an opportunity—I could be writing a story, taking a bubble bath, or putting some aspect of my life in order (back to the laundry folding).
Bottom line: this whole stopping and resting thing is a lot harder than it looks.