Sabbath

A Deserted Place

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Scripture Text: Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56 (Proper 11B)

30The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

53When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, 55and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

You know, sometimes discipleship is just downright exhausting.  Oh, who are we kidding?  Sometimes just being a normal person trying to keep your head above water is downright exhausting.  Sometimes it seems too hard or too much or too complicated.  Discipleship (and life, for that matter) is really sort of a balancing act.  It is full of rhythms of converging order and chaos, beginnings and ending, and pulsing light and dark and sometimes we struggle to somehow balance all those aspects of life as we continue our journey forward. 

This passage depicts a time in the life of the disciples not unlike that.  Remember that the verses preceding the ones we read are the account of the death of John the Baptist (Why did we read that again?).  And at this point, we are told that the apostles return from sort of their first tour of service and gather around Jesus, telling him everything that had been happening with their mission.  They are excited.  They have wonderful stories of healings and teachings and people that are really listening to them.  They are becoming witnesses of the Gospel and things are beginning to change!  And yet, they are realizing that this discipleship thing is hard; it’s exhausting; sometimes it’s just frustrating.  And during this time, John the Baptist had been brutally executed.  This is certain to have cast a somber shadow over their elation at the success of their mission.  This had to be scary.  After all, John had been part of Jesus’ work.  John had, essentially, been one of them, doing what they’re doing.  But, as we know, we cannot always control or predict what happens in life. And so, in the midst of their shock and sadness and grief, and probably fear, Jesus tells the apostles (and himself), to “come away and rest”.  He tells them to go to a deserted place, a quiet place.  It was a place of Sabbath.

Now, probably with very little effort, we, too, will identify with this busy life, the throng of demands, the ongoing needs of those around us, and, possibly, even with the dangers that somehow impede our journeys.  We can even identify with those times when, like these disciples, we feel that we can’t even take time to eat, those times when there’s so much going on, when there are so many balls being juggled, that you feel like you can’t even breathe.  You’ll notice here that there were verses that we skipped in this week’s prescribed lectionary passage.  They are the account of the feeding of the five thousand.  Yeah, I’m thinking that wasn’t a time of rest, that was NOT a deserted place.  As much as the disciples wanted to serve, wanted to BE disciples, that was hard.  You can imagine that they wanted so badly to go off and rest, to go off and be by themselves to grieve, to reflect, to be.  So, Jesus tells them to stop, desist, take some time to care for themselves, and not to feel that they have to immediately respond to every cry in the world.  Yeah, Jesus got it!  Jesus knew we were human.

It is a lesson for us all.  It is part of the lesson that Jesus is trying to make the disciples realize.  They are not God; they are not the saviors of the world; they are limited human beings who need to rest.  They are not called to do all the work themselves.  Remember, they are the ones that are called to call others who call others who call others.  We are not in this alone.  This is part of human reality and, more importantly, it is part of that rhythmic dance of creation to which we all belong.  And so, the disciples did what Jesus had said to do and got into a boat and went to a deserted place.

But, as we all know, just because we choose a time to sail away does not mean that the rhythm of life stops.  We are told that there were people on the shore who recognized them and hurried to greet them.  (Don’t you hate that?  Leave me alone!)  But these people needed something—they were hungry for what Jesus offered.  Jesus responded to their needs, teaching and caring for them.  The disciples were there too, perhaps a little miffed that their “deserted place” had now become a somewhat public arena.  In the verses that the lectionary omits, they wanted to send them away.  This was their time; this was when they were supposed to rest.  But Jesus told them, “no, give them something to eat, sustenance for their bodies and food for their souls.”  So, in a way that is so familiar to us, he took the food, and blessed it and gave it to the disciples to serve the people around them.  Rest would come.

In her book, Sabbath Keeping, Donna Schaper says that “Sabbath is a way of living, not a thing to have or a list to complete.  By observing it we become people who both work and rest, and who know why, when, and how we do either.  We also recognize the occasions on which we do both at the same time.  We know how to pray, how to be still, how to do nothing.  Sabbath people know that “our” time is really God’s time, and we are invited to live in it.  We are living our eternity now—this Tuesday and Wednesday, this Saturday and Sunday.”  Isn’t that what we are trying to do—find that rhythm of life to which God invites us, that balancing act, if you will, that is God’s call to us?  This is the way that our time and God’s time converge and become one.  This is the way that our hearts beat the heartbeat of God and our ears hear God’s music.

The Jewish culture in which Jesus and the disciples lived was one that embraced time much more than space.  The understanding was that, contrary to the way we look at time, all hours were not alike.  Each hour was unique and the only one given at that moment.  Each hour held its own identity and its own purpose and within all of those hours, the Sabbath, those times when God calls us to rest and renew and return to our deepest relationship with God, were like great cathedrals, the Holiest of Holies, that sanctified time from which God then sent us into the world.

But we have lost that rhythm of being sent out into the world and renewed within God’s sanctified time, as God’s work prepares us to be sent forth again.  We are so busy doing our own work that we’re not allowing God to do God’s work on us.  It is wrapped in this holy time of rest with God that we get this glimpse of the holy and the sacred that exists for us even now.  It is what gives us the vision to do the work that needs to be done.  It allows us a chance to once again get in touch with God’s purposes for us and for the world.  It is a way of emptying ourselves.  Mother Teresa once proclaimed, “Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up.”  This is the way that God fills us up.  It is the way of becoming Sabbath, the Holiest of Holies, consecrated for God.  It is part of being a disciple.

This idea of the Sabbath being holy is not new.  In fact, ancient Judaism saw Sabbath rest and eternity as one, of the same essence.  Abraham Heschel relates a legend that claims that “at the time when God was giving the Torah to Israel, [God] said to them:  My children!  If you accept the Torah and observe my commandment, I will give you for all eternity a thing most precious that I have in my possession.  And what, asked Israel, is that precious thing which Thou wilt give us if we obey Thy Torah?  The world to come.  Show us in this world an example of the world to come.  The Sabbath is an example of the world to come…The Sabbath possesses a holiness like that of the world to come.”

I know.  Sabbath is hard.  There is just too much to do.  There are just so many hours in the day.  There are too many people depending on me.  If I don’t do it, it won’t happen.  Are any of these resonating with any of you? John Westerhoff, who is a well-known theologian, calls the phrase “if I don’t do it, it won’t happen” a proclamation of atheism.  Wow!  None of us are in this alone.  If you don’t do it, either someone else will or it just wasn’t meant to happen.  If you believe in the God who is always with you, always holding you, always guiding you; if you believe in the God who created you and loves you so much that this God would give you this gift of Sabbath to make you aware of that, if you believe in the God who calls us into this household of believers where we support each other into becoming the Body of Christ, then why don’t you believe that God will somehow empower you to find a way to get everything done that needs done?  Go back and read the Gospel passage again.  There was work to be done—LOTS of work to be done–and the disciples waited in the boat. “Come away and rest.”

In 1951, Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote what I think is the quintessential classic entitled The Sabbath.  In it, Heschel says that “unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath while still in this world, unless one is initiated in the appreciation of eternal life, one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.  Sad,” he says, “is the lot of the one who arrives inexperienced and when led to heaven has no power to perceive the beauty of the Sabbath…”

The traditional Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown, the Christian Sabbath with morning worship.  In both, Sabbath time begins with the lighting of candles and a stopping—to welcome the Sabbath in.  The Jewish understanding is that the Sabbath is welcomed in like a queen.  It is more than rest; it is promise.  It is a release from whatever enslaves us.  For the early Jews, that was actually embodied slavery; for us, it is choosing to be released from clocks and commitments and phones and schedules and all those burdens that we bear.  Marcia Falk writes that “three generations back my family had only to light a candle and the world parted.  Today, Friday afternoon, I disconnect clocks and phones.  When night fills my house with passages, I begin saving my life.” This is the beginning of sacred time.  This is the beginning of eternity.  This is where we find life.

Sabbath is not rest the way we think.  Sabbath is connection.  Sabbath is responding to God’s invitation to enter the holiest of holies, to leave ourselves behind, if only for a day, and find ourselves. Sabbath is not a nap, not a withdrawal. Sabbath is rest in the God we know, the God who is wanting us to connect, wanting us to find ourselves.

Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future…A day in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. (Maya Angelou)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Rest

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Scripture Text: Mark 2:23-3:6 (Proper 4B)

 23One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” 25And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” 27Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

3Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” 4Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

“And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” 

We know these familiar verses.  But where was the part about the rules?  (Yeah, they’re not there.  I think, sadly, those may have been inserted later!)  Truthfully, the Sabbath was never meant to be governed by rules.  The Sabbath was meant for us.  But many of us read the beginning of the second chapter of Genesis as sort of a pretty poetic “wrap up” to the whole Creation account. We read it as “whew! That’s done!”  But the Sabbath is much, much more.  This divine resting is part of the created order.  This divine act of blessing the Sabbath is God’s act of giving power to the temporal order; it is the honoring of the cycle of work and rest that is part of the implicit rhythm of Creation.  God did not stop working at Creation to take a nap.  God rather created the Sabbath that we might embrace all that had been created.  Essentially, the Sabbath is the climax of all there is.  And so, we are given the commandment to “remember the Sabbath” or to “observe the Sabbath”, depending on where you’re reading, not because it’s a rule but because it’s part of who we are. 

But in the passage, there are those who forgot this.  In one of his poems, T.S. Eliot said that “we had the experience but missed the meaning.”  This describes it to a tee. They were so worried about Jesus breaking the “rules” of the Sabbath that they forgot compassion; they forgot justice; they forgot who they were; they forgot what the Sabbath was meant to be; they forgot that the Sabbath was there to sustain who they were. 

The Hebrew term for Sabbath, Shabbat, means“to cease and desist”. It is a call to stop—to stop work, to stop accomplishment, to stop worrying, to stop possessiveness, to stop controlling others, to stop trying to be God.  It is not a legalistic commandment, but a calling to wholeness, a calling to who we are called to be.  You see, this Sabbath, or Shabbat, that God created, the climax of all that is created, is the culmination of all things.  It is a glimpse of the holy and the sacred, a chance for us to experience the life that is to come. 

Nice as we all are, we do not gather on the Sabbath simply because we enjoy one another’s company.  We could go sit at Starbucks and do that.  We come because in the deepest part of our being is a hunger for the Kingdom of God.  Sometimes that’s hard to define.  Hans Kung defines the reign of God as “God’s creation healed.”  That means all that we see, all that we are, body-bent and soul-starved, will be able to stand and praise and join with God.  In 1951, Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote what I think is the quintessential classic entitled The Sabbath.  In it, Heschel says that “unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath while still in this world, unless one is initiated in the appreciation of eternal life, one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.  Sad,” he says, “is the lot of the one who arrives inexperienced and when led to heaven has no power to perceive the beauty of the Sabbath…”

But I must confess that I struggle with keeping Sabbath.  There is too much to do; there are too many places to be; there are too many things that only I can do.  (Oh, come on!)  The truth is, when I am feeling overwhelmed, I tend to buy books on “Sabbath” and “Simplicity”.  Needless to say, I have a lot of them.  I think I am trying to create the perfect setting for my own “Sabbath-keeping”.  And therein lies my problem.  The call to hallow or remember or keep the Sabbath is not a rule.  It is an invitation to freedom, to wholeness.  That’s exactly what our Creation account implies that God did, if only for a day in time.  God created Sabbath rest and then rested in the beauty and rhythm of the Creation that was already there.  God quit creating and intentionally rested in what was created.

And by remembering and observing the Sabbath, we too, can enter the rhythms and cycles of Creation just as they are intended to be.  Heschel contends that “The Sabbath is more than an armistice, more than an interlude, it is a profound conscious harmony of [humans] and the world, a sympathy for all things and a participation in the spirit that unites what is below and what is above.  All that is Divine in the world is brought into union with God.  This is Sabbath, and the true happiness of the universe.”

There is a story of an American traveler on safari in Kenya.  He was loaded down with maps, and timetables, and travel agendas.  Porters from a local tribe were carrying his cumbersome supplies, luggage, and “essential stuff.”  On the first morning, everyone awoke early and traveled fast and went far into the bush.  On the second morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went very far into the bush.  On the third morning, they all woke very early and traveled very fast and went even farther into the bush.  The American seemed please.  But on the fourth morning, the porters refused to move.  They simply sat by a tree.  Their behavior incensed the American.  “This is a waste of valuable time.  Can someone tell me what is going on here?”  The translator answered, “They are waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.”

That is what God has given us in the Sabbath—the gift of reconnecting with our soul, the gift of reconnecting with God, the gift of once again realizing what the freedom of life means.  It is the chance to once again stand up straight and praise God for all that we are and all that we will become.  It is the freedom to be what God intended us to be, to cease being weighed down by things that are not part of that.  Maybe that’s something we ought to put on our “to do list”.

The traditional Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown, the Christian Sabbath with morning worship.  In both, Sabbath time begins with the lighting of candles and a stopping—to welcome the Sabbath in.  Marcia Falk writes that “three generations back my family had only to light a candle and the world parted.  Today, Friday afternoon, I disconnect clocks and phones.  When night fills my house with passages, I begin saving my life.”  This is the beginning of sacred time.  This is the beginning of eternity.  This is where we find life.

Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam. Asher kidishanu b’mitz’votav v’tzivanu. L’had’lik neir shel Shabbat.  Amein

Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe Who has sanctified us with [these] commandments and commanded us To light the lights of Shabbat.  Amen.           

Faith dies when religion declares its certainties beyond question. Faith is a journey, and there is always more to discover. If you want a solid “Biblical truth,” it is that we have more to see. The other is the freedom to rest. Not just take a day off from work, but rest, stop, open our mouths to sing and, from no hymnal ever fought over, discover the song we and God are composing. We cannot know what that song is until we stand still. We cannot know what work God is doing in our lives until we stop our own striving. We cannot know what truth God would show us until we set aside all that we think we know. We cannot accept the gift God would give us until we put down tools, weapons, certainties, and pious accoutrements, and simply hold out open hands to God. (Tom Ehrich)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Breathe…

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This Sunday’s Lectionary Passage:  Mark 1: 29-39

29As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. 32That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. 35In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” 38He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 39And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

So, this Scripture has LOTS of stuff going on, doesn’t it?  In one passage, Jesus leaves the synagogue, goes to someone’s house, heals a woman, eats dinner, cures all these people that showed up at the door, and then finally (finally!) in the dark of the early morning gets to go off by himself to pray. Jesus is depicted as a never-tiring, all-encompassing, always-present healer and teacher that was always open to offering his heart to others in love.  If this is the life that we are supposed to live, I don’t know about you, but as much as I want to live a life based on the life of Jesus, it sort of seems a little exhausting.  Is this what it means to follow in Jesus’ footsteps?

This story seems very chaotic, almost a frenzy of chaotic clamoring as people try to get to Jesus.  And the disciples were no help.  I mean, Jesus had already cured everyone who had been brought to him and they apparently ran out and gathered more.  In fact, the passage says that the “whole city was gathered at the door”.  The whole city?  (“We need you.  Come now.  Houston is at your door!)  But this time, it says that he cured “many”—not all–many.  So maybe Jesus’ purpose was not to do everything for everyone but rather to show us a way to live that aligned with the life that God envisioned for us.

And, so, in the morning, before dawn, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went to a deserted place, a place without the crowds, a place where he could pray and be alone with God.  I think this is the high point of the passage.  Because here we see a very human, very vulnerable, and (I would think) very tired Jesus who seeks direction and deeply desires to spend time with God.  We see a Jesus that needs to stop and spend time alone in prayer and thought—just like we do.  And there he prayed…

But, alas, even Jesus did not have the luxury of unlimited time for himself and his prayer life.  We are told that Simon and the others literally hunted him down. (Hunted him down?!?)  You can imagine it: “Come on, Jesus, everyone is looking for you, everyone needs you…what are you doing out here by yourself when there’s so much work to be done.”  (OK, I think this is rather humorous!)  Jesus’ answer?  (Wait for it!)  “So, they’re all looking for me in town?  OK, then let’s go somewhere else.”  (GREAT answer!)  Because after all, his mission was to spread the Gospel, not to get “bogged down” in answering every need of the town.  I mean, that’s why he had called all these disciples.  What were they doing? What a great lesson this could provide for us!  Jesus did not feel the need or the compulsion to be “all things to all people”.  His mission was to be who God called him to be. 

So what does this mean for us?  We understand that we are called to serve others, that we are called to healing and teaching and loving our neighbors, that we are called to be part of changing the world. Jesus showed us that.  But Jesus also showed us that we are also called to a deserted place, to prayer and solitude, to a close and personal relationship with God.  And, for most of us, that deserted place is much harder to find amidst the crowds that are lined up, clamoring and chaotic, outside our own door.

But then the words of the commandment return to us.  “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.”  Sabbath rest is not vacation.  It is not a nap or even just a break from the day to day.  And it is not even limited to a specific day of the week.  It is rather setting aside a time with God so that we will experience re-creation, just as Jesus did away from everyone else.

The Hebrew term for “Sabbath” is Shabbat, which essentially means “to cease or desist”.  It means to stop: to stop work, to stop worrying, to stop possessing, to stop running, to stop trying to be God and working so hard to ensure our future as we would like it to be.  It means to stop creating, which is exactly what God did in the first chapter of Genesis.  It means to stop and look around and see all that there is to see.

The term Shabbat also means “to rest”, to enter into the rhythm of life in which God created and invited us to live.  Our fast-paced, driven society often tries to convince us that this is a sign of weakness, of laziness, a characteristic of someone who will never succeed or get ahead.  But we often forget that life is about rhythms and cycles that support and renew each other.  Jesus knew that and, in this passage,, tries to show the disciples and ultimately us just that.

In her book “Keeping the Sabbath Wholly”, Marva Dawn tells the story of a wagon train on its way from St. Louis to Oregon.  Its members were devout Christians, so the whole group observed the habit of stopping for the Sabbath day.  Winter was approaching quickly, however, and some among the group began to panic in fear that they wouldn’t reach their destination before the heavy snows.  Consequently, several members proposed to the rest of the group that they should quit their practice of stopping for the Sabbath and continue driving onward seven days a week.  Well, this proposal triggered a lot of contention in the community, so finally it was suggested that the wagon train should split into two groups—those who wanted to observe the Sabbath and those who preferred to travel on that day.  The proposal was accepted, and both groups set out and traveled together until the next Sabbath day, when one group continued while the other remained at rest.  Guess which group got to Oregon first.  You’re right.  The ones who kept the Sabbath reached their destination first.  Both the people and the horses were so rested by their Sabbath observance that they could travel much more vigorously and effectively the other six days of the week.

We are not meant to just go and go non-stop.  God didn’t create us for that.  In fact, God didn’t create ANY of creation for that.  All of creation is full of seasons, full of that rhythm of doing and resting, growing and fallow, birth and death.  Jesus knew that.  And so even though there was still more work to do, he went to a deserted place.  And there he stopped, and rested, and prayed…

A legend relates that “at the time when God was giving the Torah to Israel, [God] said to them:  My children!  If you accept the Torah and observe my commandments, I will give you for all eternity a thing most precious that I have in my possession.  And what, asked Israel, is that precious thing which Thou will give us if we obey Thy Torah?  The world to come.  Show us in this world an example of the world to come.  The Sabbath is an example of the world to come.”  Abraham Heschel says that “unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath [rest] while still in this world, unless one is initiated in the appreciation of eternal life, one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.  Sad is the lot of [the one] who arrives inexperienced and when led to heaven has no power to perceive the beauty of the Sabbath.”

That is why Jesus went to the deserted place—not to just run away from the crowds, but to bask in the beauty of Sabbath rest, to glimpse the mystery of the world to come and have a clearer vision of how to live.  And that is why we are all called to our own deserted place—to our own times of ceasing and rest and basking in Sabbath holiness.  Because the only way to prepare our bodies for healing, our minds for teaching, and our hearts for loving is to set aside a time when our souls can become one with God and just for a moment glimpse the beauty of the world to come.

Aristotle once said “we are what we repeatedly do.”  So do we want to be this wild, chaotic, almost frantic way we often live our life?  Or do we want to breathe in the presence of God, who fills us and leads us to life?   So go to your deserted place and be blessed with Sabbath joy, renewed in Sabbath holiness, and enfolded with the eternity of Sabbath peace.  Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.  It is the world to come.  It is that home to which we journey. It is who you are. Breathe…

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. (Etty Hillesum)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

In the Time Between

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StillnessScripture Text:  Luke 23: 48-49

48And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. 49But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

 

What do we do with this day, this day after, this day before, this time between?  What do we do when our foundations have been shaken to their core and we wander, alone?  What do we do when we stand at a distance and can do nothing to fix it or hurry the healing along?  This IS the deepest part of the wilderness.  We begin to wander again but this time, we are alone.  This time we wander in grief and despair.  The darkness overcomes us.

Have you noticed that all of the Gospels after the frantic accounts of the Crucifixion fall silent on this day?  They all go from some rendition of laying Jesus in the tomb to some version of “after the Sabbath”.  There was, you see, nothing more to say about what had happened and the story had to stop and wait for itself to begin again.  You see, this IS the Sabbath, the time between work and work, the time between conversations, the time between life and life.  This IS the time to be silent, to sit in the deep wilderness and wait, wait again for life to dawn.

The truth is, there IS nothing to do with this day.  See, this day is not ours.  We’re so accustomed to days revolving around our lives that we have forgotten how to wait, how to just be.  Notice that tomorrow morning the Scripture will not give us the account of the Resurrection.  It will instead tell us the story of the revelation of what has happened, the finding of the empty tomb.  We were not there for the Resurrection.  While we were grieving and wondering and trying to find our way in this new wilderness, God was re-creating in the darkness.  God seems to be drawn to the darkness, to the place where the Light most needs to be.

So, in this darkness, in this silence, know that you are not alone.  Know that God is re-creating everything even now.  Know that this is the time to just be still, to just be still and know.

My ego is like a fortress.  I have built its walls stone by stone to hold out the invasion of the love of God.  But I have stayed here long enough.  There is light over the barriers.  O my God…I let go of the past.  I withdraw my grasping hand from the future.  And in the great silence of this moment, I alertly rest my soul. (Howard Thurman)

 

FOR TODAY:  It is finished.  Just be still.  Just be still and know.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli