Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sabbath: 2011

Just the word.....Sabbath....brings back memories... of Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons.  It also makes me remember one of my favorite books, All Of a Kind Family, which featured a Jewish family living their lives on New York's Upper East Side before the outbreak of WWI. 

To me that fact alone shows me that I view the Sabbath as something old fashioned...not relevant to my world today.....and that makes me sad.  I think the word Sabbath is a beautiful one.  A word that invokes feelings of peace, dinners shared with extended family, honor, and ......guilt.  Ahhh yes, guilt! Because I know in the pace of our life we don't seem to embrace the Sabbath as we should.

Too many times our family Sabbath is a time of catching up on chores....shopping....preparing for the next week.....just plain ole' busyness. Or we separate. Each of us finds an activity that we like, and we retreat to our corners (or various rooms as it may be) to engage in the alone... for hours... alone!  It's easy to live this type of Sabbath  because it is how most of the people around us celebrate it.  Yes, we do go to church in the morning...and sometimes even do another church related activity. But is that really at the heart of what God said when He commanded us to "Honor the Sabbath Day"? 

In my world of  "do it all, be all, and help all" I think I've lost what the heart of the Sabbath is.  In my world I don't even call it the Sabbath but rather Sunday...another day of the week.  And that makes me sad....because, deep in my heart, I know it's more than that.

I don't want to romanticize it, make it another "event" that I have to shine up or perform within. I definitely don't want to make it an empty ritual that I feel guilt-ridden about. I just want to feel it....and in taking the time to be in the moment, really feel it, I believe I will feel God Himself. I will be at communion with Him...and be able to receive the very refreshment He longs to give me.

This sounds very pretty....and even pretty religious.  But that's not what I'm striving for.  I want to be practical, real, authentic.  I want to experience the Sabbath in the year 2011...right now...not like the Waltons or the Ingels. I want to experience it as Kristi....with my husband and unpredictable teenagers.  As simple as that sounds I'm a little lost as to what this means.  Maybe I need to pray more on it...read a bit more...and really let God teach me what that means.

Taking back control of our Sundays...our Sabbaths isn't going to be easy.  But then nothing really worth having is.  My Sabbath dream is just that ....a dream of cozy family dinners after church...of a day without the interruptions of texting, phones, computers, televisions and all the other  things that can come between real human to human contact...a day of prayer and play...a day of walking closer with Him and letting Him fill me up with His wonder....a day of connection.

I've seen books on this topic and although I don't want to hide in another "how-to" book I must admit that books inspire me! So I'm debating on ordering this one....or maybe this one...or this one....or...

See how easy it is for me to let activity take over the process of just being?!
 No answers today...just questions..
.but maybe, just maybe,
 God is smiling
 because I'm taking the time to ask them.

4 comments:

  1. Kristi, this is not an easy task, but it sounds like this is a strong desire you have. Try to explain to your family how you feel. Once you do it , it will become easier to just be. Beautiful post. I do realize that we are all so busy with our life to take the time and reflect but maybe you can do it every other week or however it works for all of you.

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  2. Thanks Ayala....for the comment and the good advice! :)

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  3. Though I'm not Jewish, I've always been drawn to the idea of Sabbath. One Sunday, we had the opportunity to experience it since we all got sick. I must say it felt very nice to be home and just be. It was peaceful, relaxing and almost as if we werein the presence of something calmong. No telling whether it'll happen again but we all enjoyed that special Sunday.

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  4. This is such a beautiful post, friend! I know that we just "met," but I can call you that, can't I?

    All of your wondering and being and tasking and reading and wanting of good for your family is just that- good, whole, perfect, you.

    Have I mentioned that I love this post?! Well done, lady. well done, indeed!

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