Sunday, June 1st
- Scripture: Exodus 34:21 – “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day, you shall rest.”
- Reflection: Rhythms of effort, labor and work balanced by pauses for rest and renewal can be found in the patterns of nature. Just like the earth needs respite between seasons, so do people. Keep the Sabbath. Take time to reflect and rejuvenate in nature.
- Spiritual Practice Prompt: Schedule a time this week to unplug and enjoy a day of rest. Come back to yourself. Be centered and grounded again. Reflect on ways to incorporate regular respite and restoration into your life.
Song:
- Come Away With Me by Norah Jones: https://youtu.be/lbjZPFBD6JU?si=dKRIlc3948YQ5DS_
I feel as if God had, by giving the Sabbath, given fifty-two springs in each year. —Samuel Taylor Coleridge
At least one day in every seven, pull off the road and park the car in the garage. Close the door to the toolshed and turn off the computer. Stay home, not because you are sick but because you are well. Talk someone you love into being well with you. Take a nap, a walk, and hour for lunch. Test the premise that you are worth more than you can produce – that even if you spent one whole day of being good for nothing you would still be precious in God’s sight. And when you get anxious because you are convinced that this is not so – remember that your own conviction is not required. This is a commandment. Your worth has already been established, even when you are not working. The purpose of the commandment is to woo you to the same truth. —Barbara Brown Taylor
The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body. . . Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength. . . . It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.—Charles Spurgeon
Like a path through the forest, Sabbath creates a marker for ourselves so, if we are lost, we can find our way back to our center. —Wayne Muller
It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. —C. S. Lewis
A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day of the whole week. —Henry Ward Beecher