Sabbath

When You’re Driving Around with Your Tank Half-Full

September 3, 2015 By Michelle

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I had a revelation at the gas pump yesterday. I realized that the last several times I’ve leaned against the mini-van, nozzle gushing into the tank, I’ve clicked off the pump before it automatically clicked off itself.

I’ve driven away with half a tank, too rushed, too busy, to allow myself the time to pump a full tank of gas.

Now granted, I drive a beast of a mini-van with an enormous twenty-five gallon tank. When she’s flatlining on empty, it takes a while for that dashboard dial to crawl all the way to Full. But still…what’s it take…four, five minutes, tops? I’m so busy I can’t wait the four minutes for the ‘ol girl to fill?

In a word, no. I’m not that busy. I’m choosing to be that busy.

A few years back, my best friend Andrea and I used to talk for at least a full hour every single Friday afternoon. We did this for years. It was a standing date each week, and I looked forward to it. I brewed myself a cup of tea, arranged a handful of ginger snaps on a plate, settled into the corner of the couch with the sun on my feet. That weekly hour with Andrea sustained me.

To be fair, Andrea and I aren’t stay-at-home moms anymore. We both work now. Our boys are older. We do have more demands on our time, this is true. Yet something noticeable has changed. We talk perhaps once a month, usually when one or both of us is shuttling across town on yet another errand or another boy drop-off. I’m hardly ever sitting in an actual chair in my actual house when I talk to Andrea these days. We don’t intentionally set aside a regular time for our friendship like we used to do. Instead, we squeeze it in wherever it will fit.

What’s happened with Andrea — this squeezing our friendship into a sliver of time instead of intentionally making a true space for it — is indicative of what’s happening in every part of my life. I’m simply squeezing it all in — here, there, wherever I can find an available slot.

Fifteen minutes of Bible study in the morning as I swallow down my English muffin; ten minutes of reading while I wait to pick the boys up from school; an email dashed off before bed; a Voxer message recorded as I walk across Walgreen’s parking lot.

Society tells us we are allowed to rest, we are allowed margin and space and time, we are allowed to re-fuel, when our work is done. When every last box on our to-do list is ticked. When every errand is run and deadline is met. When the last tee shirt is folded and in the drawer.

Yesterday, as I drove away from the gas pump with my tank half-full, I realized this is a big, fat lie.

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Society may demand this overextension of ourselves, but we don’t need to succumb to its lure.

Society may tell us we are not worthwhile or valuable or pulling our weight unless we are doing all of the things, every last one, but we don’t need to buy into that myth.

Society may tell us that this sliver-squeezing way of life is the norm, but we don’t have to sign on the dotted line.

Here’s the truth, friends (and I know you’ve heard this before, but if you’re anything like me, living the squeezy-squeeze life, you need to hear it again):

God gives us the gift of rest. It’s called Sabbath, and it’s made especially for us (and it doesn’t necessarily have to happen on Sunday, or even all at once on a single day of the week).

We can allow ourselves margin – the space to pump a full tank of gas, for heaven’s sake — because that margin is a gift made especially for us.

We can allow ourselves the space to respond to an email properly, with fully articulated sentences and thoughtfulness, because that space is a gift made especially for us.

We can allow ourselves the time to pick up the phone and settle into the sunny corner of the couch instead of a text dashed off at a red light, because that time is a gift made especially for us.

Let’s not let society tell us we don’t have the time anymore. We do have the time. God gives us time — plenty of it, in fact. We each get to decide how we’ll use it, so let’s not squander the gift made especially for us.

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You Forget All about Sabbath on Vacation

June 16, 2013 By Michelle

Vacations always upset the spiritual scaffolding I’ve painstakingly established for myself. This used to scare me. I worried that without my morning Bible study, journaling and prayer time, without my church and my community and spiritual routines, my faith would dissolve like sugar in hot tea.

Over time, though, I’ve realized that’s not exactly the way it works.

I tucked my Bible and journal into my suitcase before we set off for Utah. I had every intention of carving out a quiet time each morning for prayer and reflection. In fact, the hotel grounds offered the perfect spot – a bench about halfway up a small hill dotted with prickly pear and sage, with a view of the rising sun streaking Zion’s formidable canyon walls.

But it didn’t happen. Not a single morning. My Bible stayed in the suitcase, beneath the one pair of jeans I’d brought. I slept in instead.

We also blew off church two Sundays in a row. It never even occurred to us to find a church in Utah. Not only did I neglect to honor the Sabbath, I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was for ten days straight.

As you might know from past blog posts, I take my pledge to honor the Sabbath pretty seriously. So when I realized on the drive home from Utah that I hadn’t given the Sabbath a second thought for two weeks running I grimaced a bit.

But then, I let it go. I didn’t fret about my lack of prayer or Bible study or even the fact that I skipped over the Sabbath, because the truth is, I finally realized that my faith can stand alone, without all the accompanying accoutrement.

Like Jesus told the Pharisees when they accused him of breaking the Sabbath law, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the needs of Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) We practice spiritual disciplines like prayer, Bible study and honoring the Sabbath not only out of habit and routine, and not just because Jesus suggests we do so, but because of the way they enhance and deepen our relationship with God.

We practice spiritual disciplines not because we have to, but because we want to.

I may not have picked up my Bible, darkened a church doorway or uttered a traditional prayer the whole time I was in Utah, but deep in the canyon, as the frigid water swirled around my ankles and the sun slipped through a sliver in the skyscraping rock walls, I praised our awesome God again and again. Not in words. Not in ritual. Not in any of my regular, everyday ways. But from a place far beyond language, in the very center of my being.

Questions for Reflection:
What spiritual disciplines do you regularly practice? How do you feel when you drop the ball? How does your spiritual life look different when you are on vacation?

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When the Rules are Meant to be Broken

May 5, 2013 By Michelle

Last Sunday after church, I mentioned to my husband that I needed to stop at Target to pick up a bag of chocolate chips. I wanted to make cookies for a new neighbor who had moved in three houses up the street. But I stopped mid-sentence as I explained my plans to Brad. “Oh,” I said. “I’m not supposed to shop or work on the Sabbath. So stopping at Target and baking cookies breaks the Sabbath. Twice.” [I’ve been practicing keeping the Sabbath for about five months now, and my “rules” include no shopping, no writing, no technology and no housework]

“That’s not breaking the Sabbath,” Brad answered as walked across the parking lot to the car. “Remember what Jesus did? He broke the Sabbath when he healed the man’s hand. He was making a point about helping and healing being more important than following all the rules. Doing something nice for someone isn’t breaking the Sabbath.”

I thought about what Brad said for a few minutes. I know it was only a bag of Tollhouse chips and a mixing bowl of dough, but it felt a little risky to me, breaking the Sabbath to bake. I’m a rule follower, you see. Rules keep me on the right path. They’re black and white. You’re never surprised if you know the rules. Rule-following might be boring, it might be routine. But scary? Unknown? Unexpected? Never. You know what’s coming when you follow the rules.

What I realized though, as I stood in the church parking lot with the keys in my hand, was that Jesus wasn’t ruled by the black-and-white. Jesus was a radical rule-breaker. He befriended the outcasts. He ate with the sinners. He healed on the Sabbath. Jesus was far less concerned about rules than he was about love. For Jesus, love decided everything. Love was the bottom line.

So I stopped at Target and bought the chocolate chips. And later that evening Noah and I walked up the street to the white bungalow with the empty boxes piled at the end of the driveway. We stood on the front porch and rang the doorbell, and when the young woman answered, we handed over a paper plate of cookies still warm from the oven. We welcomed her to the neighborhood with a plate piled high with love.

“For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law – I stopped trying to meet all its requirements – so that I might live for God.” (Galatians 2:19)

Questions for Reflection:
Are you a rule-follower or a rule-breaker? Have you ever broken a rule – Sabbath or other – in favor of acting in loving kindness? What’s one rule you might break this week in order to help, heal or love someone else?

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Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

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When Your Mouth Guard Reminds You of Sabbath

March 6, 2013 By Michelle

After about a year of awakening every morning with a throbbing headache and my jaw clenched tight like a coiled spring, I finally made an appointment with my dentist to be fitted for an occlusal guard. This is a fancy way of saying I now wear a custom-molded piece of plastic in my mouth at night to prevent jaw clenching while I sleep.

I dreaded the fitting appointment for weeks prior. I have a teeny throw-up phobia and nightmarish memories of the gag-inducing Styrofoam fluoride treatment from my childhood, so the thought of a metal tray oozing with gunk had me Lamazing and visualizing the ocean before I’d even plunked into the dentist chair.

Miraculously, I survived the fitting procedure with nary a gag, and when I returned to the office two weeks later to pick up my custom-made guard, I discovered it wasn’t the linebacker-style apparatus I’d envisioned, but instead, a slim, dainty piece of plastic that slid almost unnoticeably over my bottom teeth.

“So, this is it?” I lisped to my dentist, running my tongue over the smooth mold. “This little piece of plastic is going to solve the whole jaw clenching headache problem?”

Apparently so. As my dentist explained, the plastic creates just enough space to keep my teeth slightly apart, thus relieving tension between my upper and lower jaw muscles.

“It’s a small amount of space,” she admitted, pinching her thumb and index finger together, “but it’s enough to make a difference.”

She was right. The morning after my first night with the occlusal guard, I lay in bed and wiggled my jaw from left to right and right to left. The movement felt fluid and supple. The stiffness was gone, the ache alleviated, the springs gently uncoiled. And my head didn’t hurt.

Last Sunday I thought about that conversation with my dentist, as I settled into my favorite spot in the sunroom with my bible, a slice of homemade orange spice bread and a cup of coffee on the table next to me.

My Sabbath Sundays aren’t always perfect. We still have basketball games and birthday parties to attend. Sometimes we argue. Occasionally I cheat on my technology fast and peek at my email. But for one hour, sometimes a little more, every Sunday morning, I rest. I carve out a bit of time, a small space in which I let myself unwind and uncoil.

When we get home from church at 10 a.m., I leave the breakfast dishes in the sink and the cereal boxes on the table and the crumbs scattered across the kitchen counters. I ignore the unmade beds and the dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. And while the kids fire up Super Mario Bros. on the Wii, I pull the fleece blanket from the basket, plump a pillow and settle into my spot facing the backyard birdfeeder. I sip my coffee and nibble the bread (which, let’s face it, is dessert masquerading as bread). I read a bit from the bible. Sometimes I scribble in my journal. But mostly, I gaze out the sunroom windows and watch the birds, grateful for the space to rest amid six harried days.

It’s a small space, that hour on Sunday mornings — just a sliver of time. You’d think it wouldn’t be enough. But it is. It’s enough space to unclench, uncoil and breathe; to rest. As my dentist would say, it’s just enough space to make a difference.

How are you finding your small space these days?