I’m bad at Sabbath. I am good at parts of it – especially the eating cheese or chocolate on Sundays during Lent – but not the other parts.
I don't really get it. I understand rationally that it’s a day of rest, to ‘not work at your occupations’, but A) that’s hard and B) there’s more to it than that. It’s rest – but intentional, active, enhanced rest. It’s Rest-Plus: Rest plus joy and rest plus worship.
What is joy? What is worship? How much is enough? I would like a Richter scale of Sabbath effectiveness that I can judge against. I am a good rester, but I can’t just take a nap the entire day. Sometimes Instagram feels relaxing, but sometimes it does not. Should I work out? Should I skip my Bible reading or read twice as much? What counts, what doesn’t, what violates the rules?
I know it doesn’t matter. I know there aren’t rules per se – we’re not going to start using light switches on timers and Sabbath Mode on the oven (even though our new oven totally could – it has that functionality, along with 27 other features that we will never use). We’ll still lift things, and we’ll still likely use our phones and computers, at least a little bit.
It would be easier if there were rules. It’s not very restful to spend the Sabbath weighing every decision to see if it brings consolation or desolation. I’d love it if there was a laminated printout full of heuristics so that we could rest our brains from having to decide things. We’re knowledge workers! Deciding things is our occupation! We shouldn’t have to do that on the Sabbath. Tell us what to do and when and how and give us a checklist and a framework so that we know that we’ve done it right.
Give us paperwork. Give us bureaucracy. Give us complexity to obscure how simple it all is: Rest, rejoice, worship. It doesn’t even need an acronym.
This is very foreign and hard (I *like* acronyms). It requires reframing. There is no objective right or wrong – there’s not even an objective objective. You can’t be a Type-A Sabbather. You don’t ‘win’ Sundays (or Saturdays, or sundown-to-sundown, or whatever). You slow down, you abide, you RRW.
That’s it. Relax.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
I don't really get it. I understand rationally that it’s a day of rest, to ‘not work at your occupations’, but A) that’s hard and B) there’s more to it than that. It’s rest – but intentional, active, enhanced rest. It’s Rest-Plus: Rest plus joy and rest plus worship.
What is joy? What is worship? How much is enough? I would like a Richter scale of Sabbath effectiveness that I can judge against. I am a good rester, but I can’t just take a nap the entire day. Sometimes Instagram feels relaxing, but sometimes it does not. Should I work out? Should I skip my Bible reading or read twice as much? What counts, what doesn’t, what violates the rules?
I know it doesn’t matter. I know there aren’t rules per se – we’re not going to start using light switches on timers and Sabbath Mode on the oven (even though our new oven totally could – it has that functionality, along with 27 other features that we will never use). We’ll still lift things, and we’ll still likely use our phones and computers, at least a little bit.
It would be easier if there were rules. It’s not very restful to spend the Sabbath weighing every decision to see if it brings consolation or desolation. I’d love it if there was a laminated printout full of heuristics so that we could rest our brains from having to decide things. We’re knowledge workers! Deciding things is our occupation! We shouldn’t have to do that on the Sabbath. Tell us what to do and when and how and give us a checklist and a framework so that we know that we’ve done it right.
Give us paperwork. Give us bureaucracy. Give us complexity to obscure how simple it all is: Rest, rejoice, worship. It doesn’t even need an acronym.
This is very foreign and hard (I *like* acronyms). It requires reframing. There is no objective right or wrong – there’s not even an objective objective. You can’t be a Type-A Sabbather. You don’t ‘win’ Sundays (or Saturdays, or sundown-to-sundown, or whatever). You slow down, you abide, you RRW.
That’s it. Relax.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
I love reading your writing and seeing how your mind works!
ReplyDelete--Babs
This is so true and I totally resonate. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete