Rest

-
I just finished reading The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan (his earlier book Your God is Too Safe was also excellent). A pastor on Vancouver Island, he offers a considered, gentle, and scriptural perspective in his writing. The Rest of God is about the Sabbath, about Sabbath-taking and Sabbath-breaking. Rather than dictating what Sabbath is or must be, Buchanan examines his own journey in becoming a Sabbath-taker, and provides hints and practices for us so that we can enter into the rest of God. Buchanan invites us to explore this call, and to taste and see that it is good.

As overly busy modern people, it is easy to dismiss the Sabbath day as an archaic practice that doesn't consider that we have to work six or seven days a week in order to complete our assigned tasks. And we often get caught up with our failure to get something done, or at least I do. I look at my responsibilities at home and at work, my to-do list that gets longer each day, my languishing PhD studies, and I feel guilty. I wonder if I should drop something - just stop working on some task - and then feel guilty about that! Or worse, view thinking about leaving one chore undone as failure.

Do we have to work all the time, to be hell-bent (perhaps literally) on getting things done? Or do we choose to? Do I choose to? It is a question I will be considering.

Comments

Lex The Curmudgeonly said…
Very thoughtful deliberation. Although my views on religion differ from yours, I believe that any reflections on slowing down; on stepping off the hamster wheel is vital in today's society. However one defines one's spirituality, it cannot be explored if work and "busy-ness" are the terms defining one's existence.
22 January 2008 at 02:31
Anonymous said…
I must say, of all the examples God has set for us I think sabath rest is by far the easiest to follow. Much easier than not coveting (sp?) for instance.
23 January 2008 at 08:33
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two books you should read. Now. Go out and get them. I'll wait.

-
I just finished two excellent books, which, when I started out, didn't seem related at all. The first, Michael Pollan's  In Defense of Food , is an entertaining and fascinating look at the impact of science, business, and journalism on what we eat. The second is Born to Run , by Christopher McDougall, an examination of the nature of humanity wrapped in an adventure story. Both Pollan and McDougall are fine writers, able and engaging storytellers dealing with a complex central argument in a compelling way. Pollan tackles food science and the food industry, McDougall sports medicine and sports footwear.  In its opening section, In Defense of Food traces the rise of nutritionism, evaluating food in terms of its component micro-parts - vitamins, nutrients, antioxidants, and the like - the reductionist view of what we eat. Next, Pollan considers what we eat and why we eat it, cataloguing the Western diet and gradual industrialization of food. Finally, he offers what he calls "p
Read more

An appeal to my better nature

-
My dear wife sent me a note in response to my last post. Trudy reminded me of something important: when strangers speak to us, we have an opportunity to brighten their day. And while she was too gracious to say it, we have an obligation to interact with them, to love them. The flip side to the problem of uncensored self-exposure discussed earlier is unreflective withdrawal. I forget that we are all wounded (me included), and that grace received must become grace extended. Too often I retreat, preferring to escape the situation than to engage in it. While he probably wasn't thinking of all this (though maybe a variation of it), Wordsworth comments on the source of both sides of the problem, and their solution, in the fourth book of his long autobiographical poem The Prelude : When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude; How potent a mere image of her swa
Read more

What if she hadn't sung?

-
By now, you have likely seen Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent (if you've been wandering on the outer fringes of Borneo for the last 10 days, click here to see it). The 47-year old was laughed at when she came out on stage and announced her dream of being a singer, hoping to be as successful as Elaine Paige. One young woman in the audience smirked and derisively rolled her eyes. Why this reaction? Susan is not beautiful, slim, young, blonde, or any of the other things we have been conditioned to associate with the music industry, or with the entertainment industry generally. It is that simple. She didn't fit the picture - Christina, Britney, Madonna, Beyonce, and the like - so people expected her to be an untalented joke. And then she sang, and blew the room away. Susan Boyle is a wonderful singer. But what if she wasn't? What if she was tone deaf? Or if she had simply walked off the stage in the face of the reception she received? There probably would not have bee
Read more