Work To Rest - 31 Days of Sabbbath : 5

There is an ironic twist in the concept of Sabbath, that stands out bold to me, a woman.

It is that to rest, one must work. One must work like mad.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing – although it may be. I’m just stating fact. For centuries, woman have spun themselves dizzy getting ready for Shabbat, and only exhaled when it was time to light the candles.

I remember this vividly from the times I acted in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Sabbath was an anchor for the small Jewish community of Anatevka. It was a sacred time, a blessed time. Daily life revolved around this weekly holy day.

But oy. The lines about the Sabbath aren’t focused on peace or blessing. They are almost always about the hustle and bustle Sabbath demands.

A sampling:

Why is she here now? It's almost Sabbath.
Out, all of you. There's work to be done before the Sabbath.
I have to go home now to prepare my poor Sabbath meal.
Come! Come, children. Get changed for the Sabbath. Hurry! Hurry with your work
Hurry up. The sun won't wait.

Sound familiar?

This is poignant to me because right now, I am in the rush, preparing to go on a small vacation with my family. And since my parents, my sister and her children arrive for a last-minute visit the same night we get back, everything must be ready before we leave.

Work. It always comes before the rest.

But I will tell you this: The few times I have managed to work ahead and prepare for the Sabbath, my rest has been sweeter, my joy deeper. There is something about investing my best - and then stopping when the sun sets, no matter what, because it is time to light the candles and say a Sabbath prayer. In that moment, the work is worth it. Sabbath is worth the work.

In the Old Testament, God commanded His people to sacrifice a burnt offering every Sabbath. It was unique to the Sabbath, a distinctive offering to be presented only on God’s holy day

All this work to prepare for the day of rest? This is my offering.

Body and Soul - 31 Days of Sabbath : 4

Sabbath isn’t just an action.

It’s a mindset.

I think the distinction is important to note, lest we recovering Pharisees decide to put Sabbath observance on the List Of Tasks To Ensure Holiness. (You might remember – that didn’t work out so well last time.)

Certainly, the celebrating of Sabbath in a tangible form is key to knowing why God gave us Sabbath as a gift. Sabbath in theory only isn’t Sabbath at all.

But it’s not enough to sit still for a day, rigidly avoid work and somberly give the executives of Chick-fil-A a gold star for shining a light in the darkness.

True Sabbath involves both the body and the soul.

I am grateful to Mark Buchanan for making this explicitly clear in his beautiful work, “The Rest of God” (which is easily my favorite Sabbath book, by the way).

Sabbath is a both a day and an attitude…. It is both time on a calendar and a disposition of the heart. It is a day we enter, but just as much a way we see. Sabbath imparts the rest of God – actual physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God – the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness.

Both are required. For me to honor the Sabbath, both my days and my mind must change.

You see now why it’s such an overwhelming task. And why I am so hungry for it.

Hard Stop - 31 Days of Sabbath : 3

Yesterday, I did something uncharacteristic of me.

I stopped – even though my work wasn’t done – and played all day.
I left my house with beds unmade, laundry strewn, toys scattered. I left bowls of soggy Cheerios on the counter and I left the Little People mixed in with the blocks and I left a clean load of clothes in the dryer and I’m pretty sure I’m still missing a sippy cup of milk.

I let it all go.

So I could go here.

The North Shore of Minnesota, where Lake Superior kisses the rock beaches, and jagged cliffs are lined with birch and evergreen and berries.

And in autumn? God’s glory shines. Golden aspen and crimson sumac, orange maples and white bark.

The air is dry and tinged with an earthy rot and the smoke from scattered campfires. The breeze off the lake is bracing but the sun is warm.

The water, be it one of the many waterfalls that spill toward the lake, or the vast lake itself, sparkles as if scattered with diamonds.

Going Up North, as it’s known in these parts, is a sacred pilgrimage for me. It’s impossible not to worship. I am renewed by this. My soul is filled with a joyful peace. I am satisfied.

And I would have missed it, if I had waited until my work was done.

I have been profoundly shaped by this small paragraph in Wayne Muller's book "Sabbath."

There is astounding wisdom in the traditional Jewish Sabbath, that it begins precisely at sundown, whether that comes at a wintery 4:30 or late on a summer evening. Sabbath is not dependent upon our readiness to stop. We do not stop because we are finished. We do not stop when we complete our phone calls, finish our project, get through this stack of messages, or get out this report that is due tomorrow. We stop because it is time to stop.

We stop because it is time to stop.

I love that. I do it very rarely. I tell myself I will rest so much easier if the laundry is folded, the dishes done, the Little People farm animals in their rightful barn stalls.

What I’ve slowly come to see is the truth of Wayne Muller’s words, and the deeper truth in God’s command to Sabbath. The work is never done. I will always forsake the important for the urgent.

If I am to Sabbath, I must learn the hard stop.

Tell me: When was the last time you stopped even though your work wasn't done?

Home - 31 Days of Sabbath : 2

Do you have a home?

More importantly, do you like that home? Do you look forward to being there? Is your home a place of refuge, a place of welcome, a place to laugh and belong?

Sabbath is home. It is a break in time where we sink into eternity. It is the chance for us to stop rushing, stop pretending, stop performing and just be.

Home is calling.

Do you hear it?

Once a week, most likely on Sundays, I plan to share an image that speaks Sabbath to me. The picture at the top of this post? That's my front door, the entry into my home. I pray your weekend is full of wonders and a joyous return home.

Muddy Water - 31 Days of Sabbath : 1

Who is it that can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually become clear of itself.
-Tao Te Ching

My water is often muddy.

In fact, I didn’t know my water didn’t have to be muddy until recently. I just thought the hazy murk was part of living. Rest? You get that when you die.

Sabbath says differently. Sabbath says God ordained rest, blessed it. He wove it into our seasons – what is winter, if not a Sabbath? He modeled it in Genesis – even though He surely didn’t rest because he was tired.

It is part of what His plan for us. We function better with rest, with stillness, with a time to stop and remember our place and celebrate the blessings we’ve been given.

It is not given to be a burden. It is given to be sheer gift.

The practice of Shabbat, or Sabbath, is designed specifically to restore us, a gift of time in which we allow the cares and concerns of the marketplace to fall away. We set aside time to delight in being alive, to savor the gifts of creation, and to give thanks for the blessings we may have missed in our necessary preoccupation with our work. Ancient texts suggest we light candles, sing songs, pray, tell stories, worship, eat, nap, and make love. It is a day of delight, a sanctuary in time. Within this sanctuary, we make ourselves available to the insights and blessings that arise only in stillness and time.
- Wayne Muller, “Sabbath”

I pray this series, this 31 Days of Sabbath, will be a morsel of restoration, that it will whet your soul’s appetite for this God blessing that we woefully neglect.

We have lived far too long with muddy water.

Join me? Feel free to grab the button. I'll be writing about Sabbath every day in October, part of the 31 Days of Sabbath (which is part of a larger carnival hosted by The Nester; you can see all the participants here.)

Dodge Ball

By no stretch of the imagination would anyone call me an athlete. I didn’t grow up playing sports. My depth perception is dismal. I’m not competitive.

But I can win at dodge ball.

My strategy is simple: avoid. Do what the game implies. Dodge the ball. I lay low and don't make any flashy moves and sidestep any whizzing orbs that happen to come my way.

The same tactic allows me to win, occasionally, when I play Hearts with my in-laws. They’ve played as a family since Corey was young. Being that I grew up Baptist (read: Uno was the only deck of cards allowed in our house), I didn’t learn until I got married. But every once in a while, I win a game for the sole reason that I never try to shoot the moon.

Play it safe. Don’t bet big. Don't get cocky. It’s not necessarily bad advice. There are times when it’s wise to know your limits, to not get carried away. (In other words: Take me to Vegas. I will stand next to you and yell, “CASH OUT!” every time you are up more than $5.) (For real. Just ask Corey.)

But this cautious realism isn’t always a good thing.

Lately, I think I’ve been looking at life like a big game of dodge ball. I sit on the sidelines, unwilling to try if I can’t do it perfectly. I stall on decisions and put off emails and avoid writing blog posts (ahem) if I don’t think I have the time or the energy or the emotional capacity.

To reiterate: There’s nothing wrong with knowing your limits. It took me a long time to realize that saying no to something meant saying yes to something else.

But I also think it’s possible for a strength to overreach and become a weakness. In me, right now, this ability to postpone without guilt and defer the important things isn’t a gift.

It’s laziness.

Time to stop making excuse and get back in the game. And if the ball hits me? So be it. At least I'll know I'm giving it my all.

-----

I wrote this a few weeks ago, for my journal. It could apply to many aspects of my life, but it specifically applies to me and writing and being intentional. What typically happens is this: I sit down, after a long day, intending to write. Instead, I decide to drive-thru Pinterest/Twitter/Facebook (the trio of time suck) just to see what's going on. And 45 minutes later, my voice is silenced and my energy gone. I go to bed and justify the whole mess to myself as I fall asleep.

It helps to play along with carnivals like Just Write and 5 Minute Fridays, because it tells my inner editor to shush it, which is necessary for those of us who are perfectionist freaks. Sometimes, our inner critics needs to take a vacation in order for us to get in the game, where we are bound to make mistakes and look foolish and do something we'll regret later.

To that end, I'm adding my voice to the 31 Days chorus that is held in harmony by The Nester. Starting this Saturday, October 1, will be blogging 31 Days of Sabbath. As you may know, Sabbath is my word for 2011, and while I'm excited about the daily discipline to write, I'm honestly just as excited about sharing my Sabbath lessons. God has opened my eyes this year to truth that permeates everything. (Which also makes it difficult to write about. It's hard for me to quantify it, to paint a clear picture of how my life is changing. And my inner editor is never pleased with posts that aren't clear.) (I'm sorry, did someone just pin something at Pinterest?)

Undoubtedly, I'll post more than just Sabbath posts in October. But I'm hoping the 31 Days of Sabbath are small jewels for you. Just promise me you'll ignore the imperfections. I'll try to do the same.

Here's to a few dodge ball bruises.

Home Going

Northwestern College isn’t just my alma mater.

It’s my home.

My soul is entwined with this school, this campus on the lake. I grew up down the road, and over the years, this place grew as familiar and comfortable to me as my own bedroom.

It started when I first visited the campus, at age 10. My parents took me to see the drama department’s world premiere of “The Dawn Treader.” They knew I practically inhabited Narnia, and guessed, rightly, that I would be beside myself to see one of the Chronicles told on stage.

I was completely enchanted that night. Sitting in the rose-colored seats of the Totino Fine Arts Center, I fell in love. By the time I was in the backseat of the car, sitting in the sea of winding strand of red brake lights leaving campus, I announced to my Mom and Dad, “I’m going to college here.”

They laughed the knowing laugh of parents. What does a 10-year-old know about college, especially after her only exposure to this one had been a stage bursting with a giant ship and actors dressed as valiant mice and greedy dragons?

On that account, they were right. I knew nothing of college, and I had no scope to make such a grand decision. But something in me knew instinctively that love at first sight isn’t always a fluke. My decision stuck. That night, I left a little bit of my soul along the shores of Lake Johanna.

I left another piece when our church did church on campus while our church was being built. (Too many churches? Sorry. Curse of the pastor's kid.) For more than a year, I sang hymns while balancing on the spring-loaded chairs in Maranatha Hall and I learned how dangerous it was to drop a crayon at the top of the theater incline. I splashed in the fountain outside with the other pastor’s kids when our parents talked too long. I went to Sunday school in the college cafeteria, tucked in a booth that was tucked in a niche that used to be a confessional. (The campus had originally housed a Catholic seminary.) The spit wads I traded with my friends when our long-suffering teacher got long-winded are probably still embedded in the brick walls.

When I was a freshmen in high school, I successfully auditioned for the college fall musical, on a recommendation from my English teacher, whose husband was artist-in-residence at Northwestern. The musical was “Fiddler on the Roof.” I was nothing more than a chorus member and dancer, a village girl – or in one scene, a village boy, since only men are allowed to dance the famous bottle dance. Evening choral practices, afternoon dance class, two long weeks of dress rehearsals, a real dressing room and college kids who were kind to me – it was heady.

And so I came full circle. I was in every fall musical after that, through the rest of my high school years. The King and I. Oliver. Once, a spring drama based on the life of Joseph. I made friends and nourished crushes and developed a taste for campus life.

Maybe no surprise, my first job was at Northwestern. I worked in the Blue Room, a banquet and wedding reception hall, that is next to the stunning chapel (left) where hundreds of couples get married each year. I wore a 100% polyester black dress and a white apron and white collar and served the Blue Room’s famous ice cream punch to countless wedding guests. At Christmas, I would serve thickly frosted yule kaka to people coming to see the annual Gamble Family Christmas. It was a good job, an entrance into the world of waitressing, with an endless supply of free plum chicken.

Most of my youth group leaders were either students or alums of Northwestern. Our youth pastor himself was even a part-time employee; he was waterfront director, which is no small thing for a campus that is surrounded on three sides by water. My fondest summer memories root in the campus beach, on the island connected to the mainland by a rickety bridge. My closest friends and I built a sand volleyball court, raked Canada goose poop, swam to the floating dock, called Pepsi and Reese’s a balanced lunch. We never got the hang of windsurfing, despite out countless tries. Instead, we fashioned them into crude, first-generation wake boards. We would stand on top, hang on to the tow rope and yell “Hit it” to whoever was behind the wheel of the competition ski boat that belonged to our youth pastor. We tanned easily, laughed often and had no clue that our lives were near idyllic.

To this day, I can’t drive on campus without smiling, without my soul exhaling with a contented sigh. This is my home. Few other earthly places hold such a sway over me. Every direction I look, a memory lurks. The lakeside lawn scattered with giant oak and massive fir? We used to play capture the flag there. The ancient bathrooms in the basement of Nazareth? It was the closest bathroom to the beach, so it became our changing room, especially when a Blue Room shift overlapped with a sunny afternoon. (No bride cares if the servers at her reception have wet hair that smells of lake water, right?)

I say all of this so you’ll understand why I went to chapel twice last week, with Kieran and Teyla in tow, to pray for and with the student body as Shaun Groves spoke and sang and asked them to consider what is enough. I couldn’t stay away and let Shaun come to my home without being there to welcome him, to petition our great God to do a work in the hearts and souls of my extended family.

Shaun spoke a powerful word, as those of you familiar with him would expect. He challenged the students to make sure they aren’t hoarding their manna, to consider sponsoring a child through Compassion and do what the church was intended to do. He told the story of Kiran and her indefatigable joy – the same morning Melissa posted this, ironically -- and once again, I was struck with the happiness of a girl who has nothing but Jesus. I pray she is just as happy today, just as blessed.

And Shaun being Shaun, he made a few quips about our cold weather and how he’s pretty sure the Hebrew words for manna and quail translate more correctly as chicken and biscuits in modern vernacular. I’m told he also covered Justin Bieber at the Thursday evening coffeehouse venue, but as I was putting babies to bed at the time, I can’t say that with certainty.

Before he left, Shaun and his cohorts painted The Rock, a longstanding Northwestern tradition. Fifty Compassion kids were sponsored by Northwestern students, which makes my soul smile. Those students are signing up to receive a gift, even if they don’t know it yet.

I received a gift as well. Spending time on campus with my two little ones, watching them walk into my most cherished memories, was a treasure.

(Can you see Teyla on the far left, playing on the rock sculpture? Oy.)

Even more, being there while Shaun spoke, praying in the wings, interacting with the students. It fed me, in a way I can’t quite explain. It made me feel like I wasn't just a Northwestern alumnus or a stay-at-home Mom. For a few hours, I was in the thick of it. Past and present and future merged. There’s something about coming home that does that, I guess.

And Teyla? She got a gift too – in addition to the bag of caramel corn we bought at the just opened and gorgeous Billy Graham Community Life Commons.

Meet Sadi, our newest Compassion child.

Because the only thing sweeter than going home is the family awaiting you there.