Beloved St. John’s community,
I don’t know about you, but most days, I am doing my best to respond—not react—to what is happening in this world; and most days, I feel inadequate to the task. I know that silence is compliance. I know that passivity supports the status quo. And yet so often I feel powerless, and also that the tone of the anger and outrage in the world—including sometimes my own voice—is not sustainable, will not create a lasting peace. Yet it must be OK to be angry. There is good reason for it. It is classic abuse tactics to criticize someone who has been harmed for being angry. And at the same time, I can see that the anger I put out into the world makes people who agree with me feel better, but makes people who disagree with me defensive and unable to listen. What are we to do, as people of faith, as human beings, as followers of Jesus’ Way of Love?
This lent, our theme is sabbath in a time of crisis. At first blush, the idea of taking sabbath when so much is at stake might seem like a privileged person’s way to escape and do nothing about all that is hard in this world. But nothing could be further from the truth.
My husband Jeff is an addiction counselor who sees people struggling with both addiction and various other mental health challenges. One of the ways he and his clinical teams can tell if someone is struggling with borderline personality disorder, for example, is when all the clinicians are in effect “buzzing” around a client—when the client’s struggles or behavior tend to provoke a lot of extra activity and anxiety in the counselors. When they recognize this is happening, they can all take a deep breath and remember that this tends to be the reaction to certain kinds of mental illness including addiction and various personality disorders. Then they can detach, become grounded, and consider how they want to respond and promote healing, rather than simply react.
I see parallels in this situation and the situation of our country right now. The behavior of many on the left / progressive end of the political spectrum is like that of the clinicians I describe above – “buzzing” around the actions of the presidential administration. What can help us recognize what is happening, take a step back, and consider what is ours to do—what will promote healing and goodness in us and the world?
The practice of sabbath can do exactly that. Sabbath is not a permanent retreat into solitude and prayer, but a rhythmic one. It is one of the ten commandments, described by God on Mt. Sinai as being as important as refraining from murder, theft, and adultery. In fact, in the primordial creation story of Genesis 1, human beings are created on the sixth day, and God and all creation rest on the seventh day. In other words, before newly created humans did anything—before they picked up their vocation to care for the earth—they rested in delight and communion with God and all creation.
I believe it is this rest, this pause, this heartbeat of resetting to silence and prayerful communion, that helps us become clear enough to know what the Spirit is calling us to do. As an extroverted thinker, I often find it hard to do this. But I know that when I have the presence of mind to take regular rhythms of solitude, listening, connecting with God and my truest self and the earth around me, that I am empowered to know what to do and have the strength and humility to do it.
This lent, my practice is to walk at least a mile every day. At least, that is the external form of my practice. The internal practice is to use the walking time to listen, to pause, to reflect, to pray. To stop willing and thinking and angst-ing. To have a rhythm of sabbath built into every day. I encourage you all to ponder what sabbath might mean to you: what regular rhythm of open-hearted listening to God and your own wild soul do you need?
In Christ’s love,
Lisa
