Gratitude 29 and following...
It was a busy weekend, and I have been grateful for many things but have not had much time to write them down.
Sunday---
Sunday---
- Lunch with Ben and Andrea
- time to visit with another mom when registering Tim at music camp
- very pleasant supper with Wes before dropping him off for the week at Upward Bound
- hanging out with my parents in the evening and getting to also talk with Randy and Annette on the phone while I was there
- a definite sense that God was involved in the timing of the events of the last week
- phone call from James who ships out to Africa today with the National Guard
- a day off, spent resting and reading and journaling
- unexpected deal on Italian meatballs
- time to get to know Christian when Tim isn't here
- quiet evening with Chuck
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I'm reading the book, "An Altar In the World" by Barbara Brown Taylor. The focus of the book is on seeing the holy in the things you do all the time. Each chapter is phrased as a practice, like a spiritual discipline. Yesterday I read the chapter, 'The Practice of Saying No', subtitled 'Sabbath'.
Taylor comments that of all the commandments, the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy and to use it for rest is the easiest to disregard. It used to be easier to keep the Sabbath because the stores and restaurants weren't open, and other than church, many things were not scheduled for Sundays. Now, with the busyness of our culture, Sunday is filled. Most families must work two jobs, leaving much of the regular work of home for the weekend. Added to this is the cultural norm of making every opportunity available to our children. Most of those opportunities (music, sports, clubs, jobs, etc.) come with high expectations for commitments. Our evenings and weekends become crowded with games, concerts, meetings, laundry, yard work, and trying to still find ways to connect as a family. It is more exhausting than restful.
It is such a dilemma. We have all heard stories of children who dreaded Sundays because it was such a day of longing to do things that were forbidden. We don't want to repeat that. So how do we keep Sabbath in a way that is healing and restful for the whole family?
According to Genesis, as God created the world he surveyed each thing that was created in turn, and declared each 'very good'. Then on the seventh day God rested. Because God was finished with the work of creation, and rested on the seventh day, God used different words about the seventh day. God declared that day holy. The work was very good. The resting was holy.
This isn't an instruction to reverse the ratio of 6/1. Working 6 days is still very good and resting 1 day is still holy.
In Deuteronomy, the commandment to keep the Sabbath is related to the fact that God brought the people out of slavery. They no longer have to work every day. They need the day of rest to remind them that they are no longer slaves. They need it to remind them of what God has done for them. It is a day of equality. Bosses rest. Workers rest. Animals rest. Strangers who live among us rest. No one is allowed to require work from anyone or anything else.
The question is tough though. How do we keep the Sabbath holy without ruining that holiness with legalism and arbitrary rules?
Taylor suggests choosing one day out of every seven to be your own Sabbath. For herself, she chooses not to drive, not to do anything that would cause someone else to have to work, not to use tools, such as computer or garden tools or washer/dryer, etc. She bases her choices on the instructions in Exodus 20, that we should stop working and that we should allow our servants and our animals also to stop working.
It was a bit serendipitous that later in the evening Chuck picked up an older issue of "The Mennonite" magazine and opened it to an article on keeping the Sabbath. The writer of that article has a Sabbath accountability partner to keep her motivated in her effort to keep a Sabbath. Her guidelines for herself are different. She can garden because it is restful and enjoyable for her. She can go places.
I don't know how to decide those things. There are people who love their work. Is it OK for them to work on their Sabbath if they love it? Gardening is something I do because I love it, but it is also part of my work. I would feel OK about wandering out there to get enough veggies to eat fresh for lunch, but I probably wouldn't feel so good about choosing to pull weeds for an hour, even if I was enjoying myself. Why is that?
I'd like to figure out a better way to recognize Sabbath myself. It would probably involve a different day than Sunday because most of the activity on Sundays comes from commitments to the kids and to the church. The last two Sundays have involved enough afternoon and evening commitments that a nap was not even possible. By Monday I was tired.
Yet it feels bad to be able to choose a day in the middle of the week to celebrate Sabbath. Most people don't have the freedom to do that. It's something I need to process with other people. An accountability seems like a good thing in order to be faithful to the spirit of the commandment without getting swept away by rules.
________________________________________
Here is another picture of the colors on the house. There is a tiny bit of the blue/green in the small triangles at the bottom of the roof line and along the top edge of the window molding. The aluminum rectangles of the storm windows will also be that color. It's hard to see on a cloudy day, but that is what we have been having---cloudy days.
I'm reading the book, "An Altar In the World" by Barbara Brown Taylor. The focus of the book is on seeing the holy in the things you do all the time. Each chapter is phrased as a practice, like a spiritual discipline. Yesterday I read the chapter, 'The Practice of Saying No', subtitled 'Sabbath'.
Taylor comments that of all the commandments, the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy and to use it for rest is the easiest to disregard. It used to be easier to keep the Sabbath because the stores and restaurants weren't open, and other than church, many things were not scheduled for Sundays. Now, with the busyness of our culture, Sunday is filled. Most families must work two jobs, leaving much of the regular work of home for the weekend. Added to this is the cultural norm of making every opportunity available to our children. Most of those opportunities (music, sports, clubs, jobs, etc.) come with high expectations for commitments. Our evenings and weekends become crowded with games, concerts, meetings, laundry, yard work, and trying to still find ways to connect as a family. It is more exhausting than restful.
It is such a dilemma. We have all heard stories of children who dreaded Sundays because it was such a day of longing to do things that were forbidden. We don't want to repeat that. So how do we keep Sabbath in a way that is healing and restful for the whole family?
According to Genesis, as God created the world he surveyed each thing that was created in turn, and declared each 'very good'. Then on the seventh day God rested. Because God was finished with the work of creation, and rested on the seventh day, God used different words about the seventh day. God declared that day holy. The work was very good. The resting was holy.
This isn't an instruction to reverse the ratio of 6/1. Working 6 days is still very good and resting 1 day is still holy.
In Deuteronomy, the commandment to keep the Sabbath is related to the fact that God brought the people out of slavery. They no longer have to work every day. They need the day of rest to remind them that they are no longer slaves. They need it to remind them of what God has done for them. It is a day of equality. Bosses rest. Workers rest. Animals rest. Strangers who live among us rest. No one is allowed to require work from anyone or anything else.
The question is tough though. How do we keep the Sabbath holy without ruining that holiness with legalism and arbitrary rules?
Taylor suggests choosing one day out of every seven to be your own Sabbath. For herself, she chooses not to drive, not to do anything that would cause someone else to have to work, not to use tools, such as computer or garden tools or washer/dryer, etc. She bases her choices on the instructions in Exodus 20, that we should stop working and that we should allow our servants and our animals also to stop working.
It was a bit serendipitous that later in the evening Chuck picked up an older issue of "The Mennonite" magazine and opened it to an article on keeping the Sabbath. The writer of that article has a Sabbath accountability partner to keep her motivated in her effort to keep a Sabbath. Her guidelines for herself are different. She can garden because it is restful and enjoyable for her. She can go places.
I don't know how to decide those things. There are people who love their work. Is it OK for them to work on their Sabbath if they love it? Gardening is something I do because I love it, but it is also part of my work. I would feel OK about wandering out there to get enough veggies to eat fresh for lunch, but I probably wouldn't feel so good about choosing to pull weeds for an hour, even if I was enjoying myself. Why is that?
I'd like to figure out a better way to recognize Sabbath myself. It would probably involve a different day than Sunday because most of the activity on Sundays comes from commitments to the kids and to the church. The last two Sundays have involved enough afternoon and evening commitments that a nap was not even possible. By Monday I was tired.
Yet it feels bad to be able to choose a day in the middle of the week to celebrate Sabbath. Most people don't have the freedom to do that. It's something I need to process with other people. An accountability seems like a good thing in order to be faithful to the spirit of the commandment without getting swept away by rules.
________________________________________
Here is another picture of the colors on the house. There is a tiny bit of the blue/green in the small triangles at the bottom of the roof line and along the top edge of the window molding. The aluminum rectangles of the storm windows will also be that color. It's hard to see on a cloudy day, but that is what we have been having---cloudy days.
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