A Mid-Week Sabbath

I'm one of those people who believes that taking a breather from our regular responsibilities is one of the best things we can do to increase our productivity.  There's a basic rhythm to all of life, if we care to listen; the heart rests briefly between beats (the only break it takes during our entire life), the ocean rests briefly between waves, and even the wind blows in gusts, seemingly resting in between them.

Human beings are no different, being an integral part of this world.  We also need a rest from our activities.  Today I'm taking a sabbath from the crazy to-do list that dominates my life 99 percent of the time.  I will putter, I will read, I will do no thing that feels like work, and I will ponder.

This morning the coffee was brewed up on the stove minus the help of an automatic coffee maker, and other than the clink-clink of the pellet stove keeping the house warm, it's a quiet, unplugged kind of morning.  I love it.  I used to call this kind of sabbath-keeping going "deep house," because usually it involved several hours of just being at home, opening the windows and sitting quietly with a book.  But I've discovered a few hours at the beach is also a good sabbath activity, and leaves me just as rejuvenated and refreshed as a good night's sleep, or a quiet afternoon here.

So I don't know whether it will be here or at the beach, but either way, I am claiming today for myself.  Today I will strive to be as unplugged from the artificial world as possible, while being as plugged into the natural one as I can be.  It may be by walking along the beach on the last warm day we'll have for awhile, or it may be sitting by a sunny window reading a book.

But today I step back from my life momentarily, to just be.  To rest between beats, and thereby rejuvenate myself so I can work better when I return to my regularly scheduled life...which will probably pick back up sometime later today, if things go like they usually do around here.