Silent Space

One of the hardest things for me to wrap words around is silence. How can I possibly write about this? Yet, silence is integral to sabbath. While we may not be able to give an entire to day sabbath rest, we can choose perspective, as most of this blog has been about. We can also choose silence. We can turn off the noise of opinions and words, meaningless sounds that we must filter through every day.

In a world of too many words, silence affects people who are no longer affected by sound. Plenty of us who are defended against sound have no defense against silence. Some of us love it and some of us flee it. That is because silence can mean anything. 

- Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent

In the space of silence we face...anything. Funny that it is in the space of silence, in nothingness, we practice what it really means to listen. Maybe it is in silence that we can finally hear the word of God for which we've been searching.

People talk about God as being that one thing that fills the void in your heart, that one thing missing in your life. But what if God is that void? What if, instead of filling a void, God creates space. It's not just more time we need, it's space in an overcrowded life. What if God is the quiet emptiness we actually need? What if, instead of fearing the space and silence, we faced it and let ourselves flounder there for a bit, acknowledging the scariness of it all, the unknown of it all? What, in that formless void of space, will God create within us?

Take some time to muse on this today. In what ways do you need internal and external silence? In what ways do you need to practice listening? 

Where do you need space? Where is there already a void? (A relationship? A missed opportunity? A disappointment or unfulfilled desire? A frustration, confusion, or overwhelming emotion?...) How is God be calling you to enter that space? What message/story/voice is it calling you to listen to?

WANT MORE?

Does absolute quiet exist? Is there a place we could go to seek it out? The quest for silence spaces has inspired George Foy. Read about what he's learned here.

It's easy for those of us who hear to assume everyone wants to, including people born deaf. Check out this article about why some deaf people do and don't want hearing restored.

Curious about taking a vow of silence or silent retreat? Check out one woman's experience here.

Week 6: Sabbath Mission - Day 36

In my last post I hinted at the heart of this experiment. When I invited you to join me in this experiment, it wasn't just about practicing sabbath through our re-dedication of time. It also had to do with reconnecting to the mission of the church. The church is who we are together and in the world. The church is what we do and how we live our Christ's mission in the world.

For our final days in this 40 day experiment, I will dive more directly into the connection of sabbath and mission. I will also create a survey, similar to the one many of you took before this blog began, as a way to share and assess our growth, understanding, discoveries, and reorientation(s).

This focus nicely fits the theme of this week of the new year. This is a time when many people create new year's resolutions, which is another way of reorienting oneself to a personal mission. So today, I invite you to begin creating your "new year's mission". You may do something similar to the list shared by Spirituality and Practice below, or use their list as a jumping off point for something different. You may wish to look over the past few weeks and use those themes as a place to start. Maybe this experiment has inspired you to make other changes that you'd like to implement? Today is your day to begin putting it into mission language. When you consider your "new year's resolutions" how do they fit with sabbath rhythms and Christ's mission in the world?

If you'd like to open up this conversation with your kids, there's a few ways you can get them thinking and talking. One quick idea: Use post its! Dedicate a wall or space in your house where they can add their hopes for a new year with pictures or words. Invite them to add something new every day for the entire week. This can be an easy family activity. Maybe you can have your own post-it color stack so it becomes really colorful. Set a family time at the end of the week where you read through all of them together. Group the similar hopes and ideas together. Talk about how these things are important for a good year. Talk about what's missing too. Pray together and put the post its in an envelope marked 2014. At the end of next year, take them out and read through them together again. Talk about the year together. Which hopes became a reality? Which changed? Set up a space to do it all again for 2015!

Week 5: Rest & Distraction - Day 29

In one of my first posts I briefly wrote about my relationship with the daily vitamin. Consistency has been a difficult thing for me with things like that. Turns out that's happened with the blog as well and I missed a couple days last week. I'm also not super good with numbers. They don't hold a lot of meaning for me in my brain. So with that combination, we find ourselves on day 29 (whatever that means). More importantly, we find ourselves on a new week with a new theme.

Rest and

D                      i       

       s                        t           r

a                                                 c                                      t                             i           on.

Week 4: Peace & Bitterness - Day 22

Peace is another daunting task; a daunting perspective; a daunting commitment. It's a nice answer to the question of what we would most like to see more of in the world, but much more difficult to fully grasp, let alone live out, on a daily basis. Why is it that when we intentionally focus on sabbath, we have to face all of these things that do not have easy answers?*

Week 3: Worship & Idolatry - Day 15

Like sabbath, worship and idolatry are two words that we may think we know, but probably haven't spent much actual time defining in our lives. Instead, we probably have some generalized assumptions that make up our working definitions. The more generalized our working definitions, the easier it is for us to keep thoughts of worship and idolatry at an arm's distance, never fully immersing ourselves in what those definitions mean for our lives.

Week 2: Care for Creation & Confession - Day 8

We've entered the Sabbath Experiment with gratitude and letting go. Continuing on in the process leads us to another aspect of sabbath, Care for Creation & Confession. In my life, I've found it's difficult to truly care for another (person, place, thing...) without also facing the ways in which we have failed it. However, as humans, we are fallible. We mess up. Sometimes those mess ups feed into bigger consequences than we ever want to admit or recognize. Consider our oceans, farming practices, and over all use of our resources... The interest of money and quick turn around has led us to make choices that may not be the best in the long run. So, while we give gratitude for the beautiful gifts that surround us, we also need to take steps to care for these gifts. We also need to take steps to confess the ways we have not honored these gifts.

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?