Drawn To Less Vacation

Photo by Esther Wiegardt on Unsplash

Summer vacations are wonderful. The idea of getting away from it all and unplugging from responsibilities and technology. To do what is desired in a place that is not home. The weather, the beach, the mountains, the food, the family, the friends - all are wonderful things. However, I am drawn to having less vacation. 

There is value in getting away and resting. The commandments to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy are biblically rooted and psychologically beneficial. However, there is a difference in sabbath and vacation. There is a difference from rest and "getting away".

Vacations give us permission to "vacate." Escapism is very popular and fun. Vacating or escaping is not evil or harmful. In small doses it can be the reprieve that is needed to give energy to fight another day. And therein is the seed of the problem of vacations - they give energy to keep fighting rather than providing the resources to stop the fight. 

Religious traditions of all sorts have the practice of pilgrimage. Some might say that life itself is a pilgrimage, but more often than that the word pilgrimage calls to mind going on a specific type of trip. The pilgrimage trip is different from a vacation for a number of reasons and one of those is that the pilgrimage is to help gain a different perspective of life. This perspective gaining is so that when we return to our lives, we better know which battles are worth fighting or perhaps how to fight differently. Vacations do not allow space for this sort of perspective taking because on vacation we are encouraged to "get away" from your life. Pilgrimage asks us to engage our lives differently. 

Vacations and pilgrimages both have rest built into them. Both are helpful, but for different reasons. Vacations can help us catch our breath in the ocean of life, pilgrimage can help us lean to trust in the buoyancy of God.

Why I love to wait

Generally speaking, I like to wait. It really does not bother me to be in traffic or wait for the doctor. Granted, there are some exceptions but for the most part waiting does not bother me. 

Waiting is the one where we are given social permission to do nothing. It is like a "rest" in disguise. It is a time when we can do nothing and not have the social stigma of "doing nothing". 

Waiting is a time when we can practice Sabbath in the small room of our souls and no one blames us for resting. Think of the last time you were in traffic or waiting at the DMV. You may have gotten frustrated but no one was frustrated with you for "just waiting". 

We live in a time that does not value time off or rest or vacation or Sabbath because we are not "doing". At the same time we idolize the time in our lives when we are "retired" and don't have to work. The beauty of waiting is having the best of both worlds. It is both a time of doing and not doing. It is a time of work and rest in the same moment. 

This is, in part, what I love to wait.

Email and Blogging Sabbath

Just posting to say that I will be taking a Sabbath from email and blogging until Tuesday February 5th. So to the 5 new email subscribers over the past week, I am sorry things are a bit at a trickle over the next week. 

Thank you all for reading and I look forward to being back in the saddle in a few days.

A case against doing sabbath

Sabbath may be the spiritual discipline that is all the rage these days. There are a great number of books out there that deal with Sabbath and  how many books talk about fasting ? 

Maybe this draw to Sabbath is more of a backlash to the breakneck speed of our culture. We are on "work" mode seemingly all the time. We have an new "productivity" app coming out every day and there are more organizers than you can dream of. We are all busy and we all have stress for working too much or too hard.

So yes, I can see where the interest in Sabbath comes from. We need a break and we need rest! 

So why would I submit that we should not do Sabbath? Because doing Sabbath is just another thing to do! When we approach Sabbath as something that we do then are we are already missing the point?

Rather than "doing" Sabbath might I suggest that we observe Sabbath. Observe not in the "hey look at this isn't this neat!" nor in the "I see that today is Sabbath." But observe the counter-intuitive nature of Sabbath.

Most of the time when I hear people talk about taking Sabbath, it generally is rooted in a conversation of how can we be more productive with our time so that we will have enough time to get everything done so that we will "have time" to take Sabbath. This approach actually misses the heart of the matter. For you see Sabbath is that which asks us, what do we need to let go of rather than demanding that we be more efficient with time. 

Instead of asking, "how do you make time for Sabbath" we might be better off asking, "How can I learn to let go of things in my life?" Or perhaps, "How can I let go of the anxiety I feel when I don't get it all done?"

When we let go of things, rather than just be more efficient, when we are less anxious about out lives and work, then (ironically) Sabbath happens.There is nothing more that you do or nothing that you must be better at in order to observe Sabbath. 

Sabbath is not something that one does, it is something that happens - we are called to observe.  Generally we are unable to observe it because we are too busy trying to do it.