Shabbateurs

Yes, Virginia, there is a growing insurgency among us, intent on challenging our American way of life. Girlfriend and I are up to our necks in it—we are among the shabbateurs.

It all started a few years ago, when my sister told me about and then gifted me with a book by Wayne Muller, titled: Sabbath—Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. In it, Muller urges readers to find a way to honor the Sabbath (or Shabbat, in its Hebrew original). He offers arguments, suggestions, temptations. We fell for it. And we have made a gift of Muller’s book to several of our friends, recruiting for the revolution.

We first discussed taking a Sabbath day when it seemed most impossible—in the middle of a drawn out kitchen renovation, when we both were pretty sick and tired of eating out of a microwave in the basement, and wrestling with sheet rock every weekend. Our first response was mathematical: “if we take one day every weekend off, the renovation will take twice as long.”

“No way,” we said. And then we gave this Sabbath-thing a go.

First, I must admit that we are so slow at construction it is difficult to gauge whether or not something has been slowed down by half. We’d need those folks who study glaciers to come study us. But secondly—and centrally—it changed our life to take a break.

We began to predict—and prevent—mistakes we were about to make, in our haste to get the kitchen done. We remembered that we liked each other for more than our ability to heave construction materials around. We began to notice our home, and the beauty we were after in our work.

Every Sunday now, we begin by reading a short chapter of Wayne Muller’s book to one another. (I think we’ve read it three times through.) Each chapter offers a different take on the benefits of honoring the Sabbath—enjoying rest, placing value on things that don’t cost anything but time, delight and sensuality. We haven’t taken up many of the suggested practices, but reading about them is usually enough to ward off any budding temptation to “get something done,” to counter any sense of urgency, to invite and insist that we lay around a little longer, talking—or not.

In the years since we started taking our Sabbath, we’d even gotten a bit stricter about them. A Sunday spent shopping taught us that we’re more likely to feel relieved and refreshed if we stay out of the stores. We’ve taken up the challenge of not driving, and found ourselves enjoying our neighborhood and the gifts of our community—there are busses and a Metro that can take us almost anywhere we want to go. Sometimes we catch a ride with a friend—gaining more time for conversation and sharing, and an opportunity for gratitude, that others will honor and support our Sabbath practice.

We’ve also learned that Sabbath doesn’t stick to just one day a week. Entering our work weeks with a sense of spaciousness has taught us to look for other opportunities for reflection and rest, so that our Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursdays might also not be frantic. A couple of jangled-up Sundays taught us to try to stay in touch with one another through the week, so that our Sunday time together could be more about enjoyment, less about clearing the air. It’s like cleaning house for a party or a holiday—only its every week, it’s dusting out our spirits as well as our bookshelves, and it’s on our very own behalf.

I doubt I could have come to this “sabbatical” year without our long experience of Sabbath. The lessons of those Sundays already have informed this new season, helping me resist a “little job” or two, honing my attention to delight, to rest, to quiet inklings that only settle in with time.

In just a month, I’ve realized the most “prestigious” jobs I had were also the most draining. That home and family really matter more to me than the importance of my work for pay—that I would rather return home from a job with a clear head and calm heart than with another snazzy item for my resume, a headache, and a dozen emails to return.

Our many Sundays taught me to embrace and follow just the slightest disciplines. Before breakfast every morning, I read through morning prayer. There’s a lot in there about the sunrise, and it’s nudged me out of bed a little earlier these past few days. It’s been nice to celebrate the dawn as it is happening.

Morning prayer is also full of gladness. There’s some repentance and regret, but mostly, it’s about this gladness—that we have another day, that there’s this one more opportunity, and a rich and varied world in which to live it. Throughout the Bible, morning prayer reminds me, we are offered promises of peace and rest, and life—abundantly.

Girlfriend and I mostly encounter that abundance on our Sundays, on our walks and talks and naps and in our kickball games and meals shared with friends. Our calendars have shifted—rather than spending our weekends gearing up for work, we have come to see our work week as preparation for a splendid Sabbath day. And that is where our revolution starts.

[You can find Sabbath on Amazon.com—but buy

from an independent bookstore, if you can!]

© 2008 Melissa Capers