Reflection
“We are all Spirit, energy; there is a fire that burns at the invisible centre of all of us, lit by the embers of those tribal fires where we used to sit and feel yearnings deep within…Our yearning is our most ancient voice, offering an invitation, asking us to travel inside ourselves…When we allow a sense of wonder to inhabit us something magical and universal happens within, something of the Spirit flickers to life in us.”
These are the words of Richard Wagamese, an Indigenous author, from his book called “One Drum.”
I began the journey to this reflection earlier this summer when I read this book, which, among other themes, speaks of the importance of silence, ritual, and ceremony in our lives. Richard Wagamese encourages people to take deliberate re-creative time, for listening, for opening themselves to wonder and to mystery.
Although he does not use the term “Sabbath” in his reflections it is a word that came to me while reading this book.
The biblical word Shabbat – Sabbath – means to desist, to cease. We first hear of it at the beginning of Genesis, in the story that is told of the creation of the world. God pauses after the sixth day, looks over everything that has been created and just stops:
On the seventh day God rested from all the work.
God blessed the seventh day.
God made it a holy day.
The Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel, gives us this beautiful definition of Sabbath:
“Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to the Divine.”
The original Jewish Sabbath referred to a 24-hour period every seven days that was set aside for worship, rest, and renewal. It was and is still considered a gift from God that can re-establish the rhythms of time and space that are more attuned to the Divine.
In the Christian church, Sunday is often called “the Sabbath” and was once a day specifically set aside for worship, rest, and renewal. As I was growing up, I remember Sundays as special days, not just because stores weren’t open and we took a break from other weekly duties, but because after church we always did things together as a family. Even though many Sunday mornings were rather chaotic during the time when my dad was a minister and my mum played the piano (and they would sometimes mutter ironically in the midst of all that busyness, “oh day of rest and gladness”) they intentionally created a Sabbath time for our family during the rest of the day.
“God blessed the seventh day. God made it a holy day.” In this proclamation of holiness (which we also read about in other books of the Hebrew Scriptures) we are reminded of the importance of stopping and taking Sabbath time. In their lengthy tete-a-tete on Mt. Sinai God says to Moses, “Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant, a reminder that on the seventh day God rested and was refreshed.”
Taking time out is also recurring theme in the gospel stories of Jesus. Imbedded deeply within the story of Jesus’ ministry of healing and feeding and teaching is the complementary story of his need to pull back. Over and over we see Jesus turning away from the crowds, from the disciples, and slipping away to be alone and renew his spirit.
There is so much in our world today that requires our attention, our care, our commitment – environmental destruction, racial and gender and economic injustice; poverty, to name only a few – and it seems as if there is no time to rest. In fact it often feels somehow selfish to take time out. At least this is sometimes how it feels to me.
Yet in the midst of all the busyness that I have expereinced during the last few months I kept coming across a book or an article or a poem that reminded me that it is not selfish to nourish one’s soul.
Henri Nouwen was someone whose life was radically transformed by learning to “be” during his sojourns in L’Arche communities. He observed that while his life was full, he had often felt unfulfilled. He said, “Our occupations and preoccupations fill our external and internal lives to the brim. And they prevent the Spirit of God from breathing freely in us and thus renewing our lives.”
So, how can we make space for the Spirit of God to breathe in us, and renew us? How can we tend our souls when our minds and eyes and ears are overflowing with distractions?
Summertime can be a gift of Sabbath time, when we set aside the usual rhythm of our days and take time for renewal and re-creation, for letting the Spirit of God breathe freely.
In the words of Psalm 141 that Joyce read this morning we are invited to
“Incline our ears to what is beneficial and holy.
And listen for words of wisdom and truth, seeds to be planted in the soil of our hearts;
And seek out times of solitude and silence that nurture that growth,
As we walk the pilgrim road to wholeness and holiness.”
Practicing Sabbath time in our lives can lead us to a more spacious place.
It is a chance to transform all the “isms” (consumerism, individualism, materialism, workaholism) into a more holy way of living.
It is stopping to contemplate, to pay attention.
It is taking time for silence and deep listening.
Sabbath time can especially be, I think, an opportunity to explore where and how we experience God’s presence in our lives. Theologian Paul Tillich spoke of God as the “Ground of being.” He saw the world as profoundly sacred, drenched with divine presence, God within and also present all around. This is an image that I resonate with, much more than that rather remote God I heard about as a child, a God outside of time and space, a kind of elevator theology in which God is up there in heaven somewhere and the church’s job is to somehow connect people with God in a vertical universe.
Diana Butler Bass, in her book “Grounded,” also speaks of God being not above or beyond but integral to the whole of creation, a gracious mystery entwined with the sacred ecology of the universe. She says this is the current spiritual revolution: the discovery of God within the world, a world that is holy. What some call “panentheism”—God with and in all things.
And maybe it is the introvert in me but I wonder: how else would we encounter this God within except through silence, and sacred rituals, and solitude?
Catherine de Hueck Doherty was a mystic in the early 20th century who experienced God’s presence and deep love in silence. She said:
“Deserts, silence, solitudes are not necessarily places but states of mind and heart. These deserts can be found in the midst of the city, and in the every day of our lives. And how does one achieve such solitude? By standing still! Stand still, and allow the deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away. . . . That restlessness was once considered the magic carpet to tomorrow, but now we see it for what it really is: a turning away from the journey inward that all [people] must undertake to meet God dwelling within the depths of their souls.”
During the last few weeks, as I have pondered the words and insights about Sabbath time from all these wise people, I have been trying to create intentional holy resting times in my days. I have also been wondering: how could our worship services reflect more of this concept of holy resting and renewal. If God blesses and hallows—which means makes holy—the seventh day, how can our worship on these Sabbath mornings help to still our minds, quiet our spirits, deepen our listening, so that we can become more aware of God’s presence? Because Sabbath isn’t just about an individual focus—some of our deepest experiences of God have come in the midst of community. I remember some of those experiences happening when I attended Quaker gatherings with my mother and we sat with others in silence for an hour. These gatherings each Sunday morning could be the sacred heart of our Sabbath practices, with silence and music, rituals and words, that open us to awe, to mystery, to an awareness of God’s Spirit within.
I have just had my 70th birthday and am aware that during this last part of my life I am being drawn to an increased innerness, an emptying and letting go. To live deeper instead of wider. And I’m coming to see life as a circular journey, moving deeper and deeper into the centre, to holy ground, where we encounter God’s presence and are made whole.
I began this reflection with words from Richard Wagamese about the Spirit that burns at the invisible centre. I will close with words from Jan Richardson, that we heard read earlier:
To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you…
Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
peace,
and hear your life
with wholeness
and feel the grace
that fashioned you.
May it be so. Amen.