Sacred Life Sunday - Learning the Practice of Sabbath

I've been rereading Wayne Muller's book, Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives and seeing how the idea/practice of a day of rest fits into my life as it is now.

When what you do is spiritual practices and what you make your living on is teaching others about those practices and how to make them their own then the line between work and rest becomes a bit blurry. Practices meant to renew can feel like drudgery and enjoyable things (like movies) can induce guilt for not being infused with meaning.

When I made my set of Story-Beads that I think of as my business set I only had six of the blue - not a number with any significance to me. I couldn't find any more blue ones so I had to figure out how to make it work.

I settled on six blue stones and a locket (which looks like the tattoo I am planning for myself) which would be the seventh day in the week - a day of rest.

The practice is tricky. I've settled on Saturday evening to Sunday evening as my day of "no work" - or at least of not working on my business.

This morning I felt myself holding onto the tension of things left undone in some volunteer work - not precisely work-related. I realized then that the idea of Sabbath is supposed to be more a feeling than sticking to the rules. If I held on the tension I'd be breaking the sabbath just as surely as if I had sat down and done the work.

I let the tension go. Later I had to do it again, but I did it. I relaxed into the day. It's an on-going practice which, like most, will fall through the cracks at some point in time. In the meantime, Happy Sunday! I hope you found it restful, in whatever way you find rest...

Rest? Sabbath?