Gratitude & Letting Go - Day 6

I hope you've continued a running list of gratitude and letting go. If not, take a minute to revisit your list and add anything new that has come up for you over the past week. I hope you have a nice long list started here. I also wonder if, along with all of the people and other gifts you are thankful for, you've added any piece of yourself in that list? When is the last time you gave thanks for yourself?

Gratitude & Letting Go - Day 5

Before you go to bed tonight, take five minutes to continue the sabbath practices of gratitude and letting go with this simple exercise found on www.livingwhole.net

THE 5-MINUTE GRATITUDE EXERCISE

Everyone at one time and another, in their living, experiences problems that consume them.

• Relationship challenges. 
• Work problems. 
• Health issues. 
• Financial challenges. 

The list is numerous. These issues grab hold and overwhelm you and your energy. Sometimes so much so you are exhausted for the problem. They grab so tight you wonder if you will ever move forward.

How do you lessen the grasp your challenges have on you and your energy? What something could have you seeing a way of positive change? The 5-Minute Gratitude Exercise just may be what you have been looking for. 

The practice of acknowledging gratitude lessens the heaviness issues have on you, your energy, and your ability to see through your challenges. With slack on the problem, you create space for new and more harmonious views on the situation.

In 5 minutes and 7 steps. That’s it . . .

Gratitude & Letting Go - Day 4

Say "I love you" to as many people as you can today and mean it.

verb (used with object)

to have love or affection for: 

to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person).

to have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in

to need or require; benefit greatly from

to embrace and kiss (someone), as a lover.

tp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/love?s=t

Gratitude & Letting Go - Day 3

Becoming aware of those things for which you are most grateful and expressing gratitude for them does not mean denying all the other stuff. How can we give thanks in the midst of pain, injustice, or feelings of depression? Is it possible to hold both our gratitude and joy, as well as our suffering, or the suffering of others? It is questions like this that draw us back to sabbath. Some people find an answer, a way, to respond to the paradox. Others find themselves twisted up by the questions, exhausted and confused. Either way, a return to sabbath can help.

Gratitude and Letting Go - Day 2

Daily Order: Day 2

Yesterday you began creating a gratitude and letting go list. What did you notice? Did you find any commonalities?

I wonder what will happen to our day when we fill it with thoughts of what we are most thankful? There are people out there who have already been researching this like the Greater Good Science Center, linked on Day 1. What I think is really cool about this stuff is that it scientifically reinforces what I believe most of us already know somewhere inside of us, but don't always take the time to admit to ourselves. Recognizing those things we are most thankful for makes us happy. Expressing our gratitude spreads the happiness. This happiness can ripple through our day, changing our perspectives, changing our actions, changing our words.

Will You Blog Along? And Other Options

If you've been reading along so far, you'll see I have a strong desire for conversation and community to accompany our 40 day experiment. I've asked for participation through comments here or at our facebook group and some sort of personal reflection through journaling or otherwise. If you'd like to use a blog for your reflection, will you share your blog address with me? I could also add you as a blog author so you could update your own reflections right here on this blog too.

WEEK 1: Gratitude and Letting Go - Day 1

This first week of our Sabbath Experiment begins with a focus on gratitude and letting go. I do not think we can truly have one without the other. Gratitude is not just saying "thank you" for something that makes us feel good. Gratitude comes out of recognition of the gifts that surround us and fill our lives; gifts that have nothing to do with what we have done to deserve them or make them happen. Gratitude, in essence, is a practice of letting go. Letting go is hard. Recognizing the beauty and gifts in our lives that have nothing to do with what we think we deserve is hard. Saying "thank you" and simply receiving these things, is hard. So we begin with little steps.

Martin Luther's Explanation of the 3rd Commandment

As we continue to prepare for our season of sabbath, consider Martin Luther's explanation of the third commandment. Luther will begin with an introduction and history of the Sabbath day for Jews and Christians. From there he moves into discussion about sanctification and what it means to "hallow the day of rest" or "keep it holy" (depending on your translation). He closes his explanation with a focus on the centrality of the Word. 

Working Definitions

We all begin somewhere. I've acquired quite a few working definitions of sabbath over the past few weeks. A working definition is the definition we work or live from, perhaps not exactly as written in a dictionary, but based on our personal understanding and purpose. I've collected these definitions to gain an understanding of our starting point. I'm not only concerned with the definitions, but the ways we describe these definitions for ourselves. 

If you haven't participated in the survey, or recently taken the time to write our your own definition of sabbath, I encourage you to do so now.... 

What is sabbath? 
Do you think of it as a gift, an add-on to the rest of your week, or something else? 

The Two Paths

Let's consider this blog our guide and meeting place as we journey through 40 days of sabbath together.

Because this is a live blog, I am aware that many of us will be strangers to each other. If you feel comfortable, please send me a message telling me a little about yourself and letting me know you that have joined us. I would love to know who you are and what this experiment brings up for you. My desire is that over time we will become more like neighbors working through our Sabbath Experiment together and supporting each other.

I encourage your feedback and responses. They will add to our community and add to the experiment.

Participating in this anonymous Sabbath Survey will provide me with useful information as well as serve you as a starting place. At the end of the 40 days you will have an opportunity to fill out a follow up survey as a way to measure your understanding, growth, and spiritual development through this experiment.

There are two ways you can participate in this 40 day experiment. As you begin this process, you may find yourself drifting between both paths. That is completely up to you and okay with me.

Choose Your Own Adventure: For those longing for less structure or already feeling that their days are too full for assignments, you will be on the track I'm calling "Choose Your Own Adventure". Each week, I will post a theme for the week. This theme will be your guide as you develop your own rituals, actions, remembrances, reflections, and more. Though this will be much more free form than the other track, I won't leave you hanging. I will provide a list of prompts that you can use during the week. Each theme will build upon itself. So, while the theme changes each week you are meant to continue the practices you began in the week/s beforehand.

The only things I expect from you are that you follow the themes, checking in once a week, and keep a journal of some sort for yourself where you can reflect through writing or art throughout the process. Depending on your goals for this experiment and/or how you work, this journaling may occur once or twice a day, or once a week. If you hate journaling and it's just not the way you work, please commit yourself to some sort of beginning response to the Experiment, where you're starting, and some sort of closing reflection. I'll write a little more about that later too, as we get closer to the ending of the 40 day period. 

Daily Order: Some of us need structure. Some of us need a stronger external motivation to hold us accountable to a process. I'm one of those people. While I've gotten better at holding myself to daily commitments as I've gotten older, I've still never been able to take a daily vitamin consistently for longer than a week. But instead of dwelling on those little failures, I've also learned to lift up the things I have done.

This 40 Day Sabbath Experiment will include a big push to practice self love and self support. While we may not be able to completely eliminate the dramatic voice in our heads counting every "failure," we will add the practice of balancing, maybe even out-weighing the negative voice, with an awareness of what we are doing. I will say more about this as we journey on this Sabbath Experiment, but for now, just muse on that idea. How will it feel to go through a day with an awareness of what you've done, not just what you've failed to do? How will it feel to go through a day without assigning value judgments to what you are or are not doing?

I will especially encourage conversation and daily participation with those of you following the Daily Order path. This is important because sabbath is as much about the community as the individual. We will build our community together on this blog, as well as participate in our face to face communities off-line. If this is too personal a process for you to engage in publicly on this blog, please consider me your partner in this experiment and send me personal messages. 

Before I close this post, I want to make a few clarifying points you may be wondering about.

1. My grammar is not perfect. Or should that say, my grammar is imperfect? whatevz.
2. I will only capitalize sabbath when referring to the Sabbath in reference to the Sabbath of the Jewish and Christian religions. You'll also see it capitalized when referring to the Sabbath Experiment. I will do my best to keep this consistent as practice for the actual thesis I'll be writing, but as mentioned above, it may go the route of the daily vitamin...
3. I'll be figuring this out as I go, just like you. I've got some research and ideas in my back pocket, but everything I write here may not always make sense or be successful for this experiment. That's even more reason for you to respond and let me know how it's going for you. Let me know what you tweak and why, how it works and how it doesn't, all that good stuff.
4. This blog is about more than me and what I write. As you grow more involved, please respond to each other in respectful, honest, even vulnerable ways. I do not have all of the answers, but together, we may come to some powerful conclusions.
5. I am Christian, but this will not be a blog littered with verses, stripped of their context to make you feel good or special. I will not use the Bible to proof-text every single thing I write. In fact, I hope this blog is written in a way that anyone could find something useful, no matter their religious beliefs or non-beliefs. Just be aware that my Jesus following ways will probably show up in one way or another. 

If you have any other questions, please let me know. I'll do my best to respond in a helpful and timely manner.

A Season of Holy Days

If all goes well, I will finally complete my Masters Degree this January. After a long road, I will be able to finish the final classes I need this semester. With this process comes the inevitable thesis project. The only requirement for this project was that it somehow connects with youth, culture, or mission.

While pondering the many ideas and issues that I could choose from, I couldn’t shake the one thing I’ve heard over and over again. I’ve heard this from parents, teenagers, retirees, and even kids. The message is clear and I’m sure you’ve heard or said something like this at least once in the past month.