Reflections on the Sabbath
"Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW"
I have, historically, really disliked Sundays. They have never felt restful but rather… stagnant. The thought of Sundays makes me feel trapped. Not because I was forced to go to church, because I wasn’t. I lived for some years of my youth with an unstable and often cruel stepparent, and the weekends were just long stretches of time that I was stuck in the house with her. Combined with the Puritan religious history of the US, in which the Sabbath rules as interpreted by their religious leaders were enforced upon pain of death, leading into the ‘blue laws’ (“laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the Western world”) plus the addition of our modern sports mania, Sundays to me just feel like boring, joyless days filled with allegiances to values I don’t seem to share with most of the people around me.
I used to have a sweetheart who had ‘I Love Sundays’ tattooed on his chest and I would look at the tattoo sometimes and feel envious, that he could enjoy this specific day in a way I couldn’t. I’ve always felt both scornful of the concept of a Sunday, and envious that others have this day of rest and relaxation in their schedules that didn’t seem accessible to me.
This doesn’t mean I haven’t given myself days of rest, but for much of my adult life I was self-employed in one way or another and given the choice of days off I always chose weekdays. On a Monday, I felt free to take the kind of rest day that felt appropriate to me, without all the religious or cultural connotations.
Notice I haven’t said much about the Sabbath, only Sundays. They used to be conflated but over time they’ve really become two separate things. Most people don’t go to church on Sundays, don’t pray. Sundays have become a day set apart for modern forms of worship; sports, shopping, entertainment.
It wasn’t until I read a book by Barbara Brown Taylor (an Episcopalian priest who teaches religious studies at a University; I *think* it was an Altar in the World, but I’m not positive) in which she talks about her own experiments with taking a Sabbath, that I began to realize there was a different purpose behind this ancient practice than those that I observed growing up. In her article Letting God run things without my help, she says the following:
On that one day every week, [Jewish people] remembered their worth lay not in their own productivity but in God's primordial love for them. Sabbath offered them a foretaste of heaven, when they would lie back in God's arms and behold the glory of creation for all eternity.
I read this a few years ago (the book, which is much more extensive on this topic than the article) and remember feeling such a deep, soul craving for a weekly Sabbath, but could not conceptualize actually making such a thing happen. More recently the craving has become a command from my body and spirit, so I started reading more deeply into the history, reasoning and logistics of taking a weekly day of rest.
In the Prologue and first chapter of the book Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW, Walter Brueggemann (a United Church of Christ minister and Old Testament scholar) narrates the biblical story of the Jewish people living as slaves under the Pharaoh of Egypt and their subsequent escape and liberation in a new land. I had a vague familiarity with this story before, but the exegesis in light of the concept of a Sabbath blew my frickin’ mind. In Brueggemann’s interpretation (which I believe heavily draws on the work of Michael Fishbane, a Jewish scholar), the story is clearly one of rescue from a “culture that is inhospitable… in its impatient reduction of all human life to the requirements of the market” (xii) into a new life in which “God and God’s people in the world are not commodities to be dispatched for endless production… rather they are subjects situated in an economy of neighborliness” (6).
I think it is very easy to see the parallels between this story and the economic/social system we are subject to in our times. Modern industrial capitalism has recreated a world of ‘impatient reduction of all human [and non-human life, I would add] life to the requirements of the market’. We live outside the “cycle of natural time” (xi)… the cycles of the sun and moon, the seasons, our own body’s rhythms. And we are suffering for it. I don’t need to enumerate the statistics of physical, emotional and spiritual sickness that are pervasive throughout all segments of our society.
In the Exodus story, the institution into Jewish culture of a day of rest is both a God-given grace and an “act of trust” (18) in a God who promises to care for his people. Brueggeman states that
“In our own contemporary context… the celebration of Sabbath is an act of both resistance and alternative. It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods. Such an act of resistance requires enormous intentionality and communal reinforcement amid the barrage of seductive pressures from the insatiable insistences of the market… it is [also] an alternative… [an] awareness and practice of the claim that we are situated on the receiving end of the gifts of God. To be so situated is a staggering option, because we are accustomed to being on the initiating end of all things (xiv).” [emphasis mine]
This last point, that the practice of Sabbath is not just about rest but acknowledgement that a Higher Power than our own will and ingenuity is really running the show, was addressed by Lauren Winner (a Jewish woman who converted to Protestant Christianity) in a chapter on Shabbat from her book Mudhouse Sabbath. She discusses a recent rekindling of interest in the Sabbath from secular sources, stating that “articles abound extolling the virtues of treating yourself to… an extra-long bubble bath” (18). She contrasts this with the point that in Jewish practices, “the point of Shabbat, the orientation of Shabbat, is toward God” (18) and that “the problem with the current Sabbath vogue is the fallacy of the direct object. Whom is the contemporary Sabbath designed to honor? Whom does it benefit? Why, the bubble-bath taker herself, of course!” (19).
I can just hear the reaction that religiously-traumatized readers might be having to these statements. In a culture that tells you endlessly that you don’t deserve rest, that you are selfish for not putting fealty to the Church or service to others above yourself, these statements could ring as familiar chastisements for daring to care for yourself.
I am not arguing here against the concept of rest or self-care, and neither is Winner. Neither was Brueggeman, for that matter. The point of Sabbath was not intended to be, and should not be interpreted now, as a time of dull and dreadful boredom, of setting aside activities that bring you joy for a long dreary day of contemplating your inherent sinfulness. I believe the Sabbath promise is the opposite: that of our inherent goodness, just as we are, without work or production. But as Brueggeman pointed out, it takes incredible intention to push back against the demands of constant production, attention, and consumerism. And even more to spend a day just… resting in the love of God.
So if we are taking a day apart to celebrate this promise of joy and rest as our embodied, inherent birthright, what DO we do on that day? What should we avoid? I have not done a deep dive into the structure and rules of other religions or cultures, but I know there are prohibitions against commerce, fire/electricity, driving, cooking, errands, cleaning. But I’m not trying to follow the rules from a religion or culture that is not my own, so I have been experimenting.
The boundaries I created around Sabbath at the beginning were: No phone. No shopping. No TV. No cleaning or household chores outside of direct food production and making the bed. No activities that have anything to do with making money. I am, loosely, trying to keep Sabbath from dinnertime Friday to dinnertime Saturday.
The first weekend (in September), I turned my phone off before dinner with an immense feeling of relief. I am as attached to my phone as anyone else these days, to the point that I have shoulder, arm and thumb pain from holding it. In the morning, I snoozed late. I prayed and meditated. I think we made waffles. I probably took a bath and then a nap. In the afternoon, I drove to the beach with a blanket, towel, book, journal, water and snacks. I intended to stay for 3 hours. I made it 45 minutes before I had some idea that needed researching, wanted to check the weather, see if anyone texted me, etc. Instead I sat in stillness for long periods of time, staring at the water. I lay down and snoozed. I read a book. I made an homage in my journal to my grandmother, who had died the previous day. Then I went to Reconciliation (Confession) and Mass at my parish, something I do very infrequently.
It was a lovely day! But in the intervening weeks, Sabbath has been more difficult. I’ve felt.. antsy. Anxious. Some of the boundaries I created weren’t working. The feeling that I wasn’t doing it ‘right’ was strong.
I have learned I miss having contact with loved ones with my phone off. Almost everyone dearest to my heart lives far away and 24 hours without my phone means 24 hours without contact with them.
I’ve learned that I want to avoid driving. It’s exhausting and stressful, even going somewhere to be prayerful, or rest. I can do that close to home.
I’ve learned that my version of a ‘restful’ Sabbath involves creativity. I spend all week in the service of my paid job and my often ill body- cooking, exercising, planning. I pray daily and try to keep God consciously in my mind at all times, but what falls to the wayside during the work week is creativity and human relationships.
I found I was trying to spend Saturdays being restful in a way that seemed appropriately ‘holy’ but sometimes what I want to do is text my best friend for 3 hours straight, or lay on the couch and watch a show, or spend the whole day working on a sewing project. So my Sabbath boundaries as they stand now:
Don’ts:
Anything that has to do with making money. My job, my side hustles.
Try not to: drive, shop, watch a lot of TV, use social media, mindlessly stare at my phone. I keep it off unless there is someone I really want to talk to.
Anything that feels in my body like a ‘should’. This includes things that seem appropriate to the Sabbath but I would only be doing out of a sense of duty.
Do’s:
Prayer! What does this look like if I have ALL DAY to pray? How do I deepen this surrender and gratitude to God for my life?
Creativity that is not for market! Nothing that ‘needs’ to be done, no chores, no tasks I’ve been ‘meaning to get to’. Creativity that is pure, that arises from the moment, that makes me feel alive.
HUMAN CONNECTION. More on this later.
Joy! What brings me joy in a way that feels connected to God?
It is a much bigger endeavor than I would have expected, this Sabbath-taking. I think it will require, and create, changes that I’m not expecting.
I will be writing about my Sabbath experiments once a month for awhile, using the rest of the chapters of Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW as a guide. Follow along if you’d like!