The Reset: Sabbath
Time is interesting: it is invisible, yet it can be measured. It flows, like water. Once it spills, it does not go back. Time is linear and portioned out in seconds, minutes, hours, years, yet it is also unmeasurable, experienced by each person, relatively; how we experience time depends on our consciousness of it along with our growth and different life stages. Your sense of time’s passing really depends on how you experience and live within it. When I was younger, ready to graduate from high school, recollecting my entire life-span since I was born, I remember thinking, “Boy, so many things have happened in my life. I grew, learned, achieved, ran for certain goals - I even went through twelve years of school! Look at all the details of my life – how big it has been, how full and complex. But - the sum total of my life has been eighteen years already - that’s a really long time!” Now I’m in my mid-thirties, I look back on that eighteen-year-old and wonder how it is that I am almost twice as old as her. I am not sure how I will describe the next 35 years. Would I say time flies like an arrow, when I look back on the second round of 35 years?
This morning, I would like us to think about the meaning of Sabbath; how are we incorporating it into our lives? Do you set a time for prayer each day as a little Sabbath? Or do you only feel the need to have a time of pause, rest and reflection as the need arises? As we live life, we encounter certain time periods in which we feel the need to reset and to restore, to discover new directions, values and meanings of life for the present and for the future. In the crossroads of our lives, we recognize a time that requires setting a new orientation in life, a readjustment. Books, travel, new pursuits all help. Each person finds their own way to deal with these elemental needs. We tend to consider Sabbath as our time for rest and restoration, mostly when the need arises. We often define Sabbath as a way to save, preserve or set aside time for our need to rest. Yet, spiritually, it is better to define the Sabbath as our response to how our Creator God has made us all. God is like the energy of life within our own rhythm of life – the pull of that energy lets us spiral into the centre, our depth of being to find our connection to the source, then find our limit, where God’s activity starts and extends within and through us. If we are sensitive enough and open to our internal cues, our changing bodily rhythm and soul’s hunger would teach us that our life develops with certain rhythms. We are within an entirety that is bigger and deeper and longer than us as individuals.
As I reached 35, (36 in September) I recognized that I have entered a new stage of life - maybe a kind of ‘mid-thirties meandering’. I’ve become more emotionally sensitive and receptive, rather than being more rational and sharp. I feel more comfortable working or enjoying things more slowly, with time, and have become more appreciative of the meanings and preciousness of relationships. I have begun to care about my body, my feminine self, my physical being. I do believe that our body is the temple of God’s Spirit where God dwells. I would love to hear how your body lets you enter a different, interesting, meaningful stage in your life, I understand that it must be unique to every different person. My hope is to celebrate with you how God dwells within your body, mind and soul, and engages with you through your whole self.
Here’s a quote I love to share from Abraham Heschel; I found it in this book: Sabbath Pause – a gift I received from BC Conference when I was ordained. The title didn’t really catch my interest, so I only opened it a few days ago when I was looking on my shelf for things to read. Until I read this book, I wondered whether all the changes I’ve been experiencing lately were like an early mid-life transition. Reading the word Sabbath immediately let me see that now is a time that calls me to Reset, Restore, Rediscover – Sabbath; I don’t have to quit my job or work or go on retreat. The idea of Sabbath is more about how you become aware of changes, care for them, and reflect on them with God. God has hit my Reset button, and my soul is eager to be synced with the rhythm of my life and God’s tempo, for the next window of new opportunities of discovery, learning, self-understanding, to be happy and vibrantly alive with the gifts I have in God. To find beauty in God, self, and the whole environment – work and nature – and to praise and advance that beauty in more people’s lives is truly a worthwhile pursuit.
Abraham Heschel says, “The meaning of Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”
We often like to describe the activity of Spirit or the presence of Spirit in terms of space, like the Spirit of God is present in this space. God dwells in you. We gather for worship in the sanctuary - a very particular space. What I most like about Heschel is that he says we also find the sanctuary in “time.” On the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.”
In our society, time is pictured as being aggressive, progressing each second, each minute relentless, with no respect for the unique pace and character of each person. Time is driving us to the unknown future – like a kidnapper, it just takes us where it will, despite our wishes. Time as money, the key to success, something we should never waste, something objective, not personal. In this consumerist society which praises productivity and youth, time is often related to aging. If you visit any cosmetic counter, you’ll hear how all the cosmetic products treat aging as an enemy, something we should be scared of, something we should fight. However, I believe God’s promise about time – God has set times for Sabbath, a deep pausing, for everyone. It is both a commandment for us and a safety net God allows to sustain us. It is true that time is linear, only progressing. In time we all experience wrenching good-byes - it’s hard to look at time as something good when it bears so much away on its ceaseless current. However, I am thankful for the recent lesson I’ve learned: the goodness of time, even its gentleness. The promise of Sabbath – the holiness in time – will teach us how to dance with the rhythm of our souls.
The following poem is a gift I’d like to share with you; please have a little Sabbath right now as you listen. (followed by offering music)
You can punch my lips so I can’t blow my horn,
But my fingers will find a piano.
You can slam the piano lid on my fingers,
But you can’t stop my toes from tapping like a drum.
You can stomp on my feet to keep my toes from tapping,
But my heart will keep swinging in four-four time.
You can even stop my heart from ticking,
But the music of the saints shall never cease.
~ Graffiti on a New York City subway car
Music
%5EJ%202023.jpg)
