A Comprehensive Rest

the surprising joy of Sabbath-keeping

A Sabbath or a Sunday? Potayto, Potahto, right? Growing up, we always went to church on Sunday morning, but then the rest of the day was ours to do whatever we liked with. That seemed fair. We had given God the first fruits of the day, and surely he didn’t begrudge us a little catch-up on homework or yard work or office work as each case might be.

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat

When I became a young mother, the thought of any day of the week containing less work than any other day was laughable because we were living through all those cliches of life with an infant. The months-old human doesn’t understand that you want to sleep-in on your birthday or avoid spit-up on your new dress the moment you sit down at a nice restaurant. After traveling with someone who alternates constipation and explosive diarrhea with the speed of consuming a container of pureed prunes, you really do need a vacation from your vacation. There is nothing heroic about it, but the need to bathe, clothe, feed, and diaper on repeat made the days a blur of necessity.

I treated Sunday the same as every other day. Drank my coffee. Started my load of laundry. Unloaded the dishwasher. There were hungry children to wake up and dress for church, and they needed to be fed. It never occurred to me to try to do less work or different work on Sunday either before or after church. I enjoyed Sundays for the break in the routine, the chance to sing corporately and loudly (just ask my children; they would be more than happy to fill you in on the details of my singing volume), and the possibility of taking a family walk in the golden afternoon. That all seemed good enough.

This last autumn, I started teaching a creative writing class at our local co-op, and I realized at the onset it could potentially suck up every last spare minute floating around my brain. I needed boundaries around the time I was willing to give it. As I was brainstorming how to do this in a way that was sustainable, I thought about the concept of Sabbath-keeping. Was this the boundary I was looking for? I prayed about what it would look like: not doing class prep on Sunday afternoon, not catching up on emails when the rest of the family was home, not viewing Sunday as my day to make copies for the rest of the week. I tentatively committed to taking Sundays off teaching, not just for my co-op class but for our at-home homeschool classes as well.

The first week of teaching, I had to stay up late most nights and get up earlier than I was used to. I emailed my students and warned them I wouldn’t be available on Sundays so they could get me their questions by Saturday. I reminded my own children, who often asked for tutoring help on Sunday afternoon, that I would be available Saturday night or Monday morning. I intentionally did extra laundry on Saturday, reasoning that it would be silly to go to all this bother about a Sabbath only to sit folding towels instead of brainstorming how to get highschoolers to write sonnets (a comparatively enjoyable task).

When I got home from church that first Sunday of my Sabbath experiment, I experienced something I had not felt since childhood: a restful mind. Knowing I had made a boundary around my workload meant I didn’t feel guilty for not doing it. Instead of taking on guilt, I took a nap. This wasn’t just any nap. I didn’t drift off accidentally on the couch while the rest of the family watched football. And while I love those naps (which satisfy the hobbit in me longing to be surrounded by friends and allies in the depths of the Golden Hall after a victory), this was an actual Sunday afternoon nap complete with reading on my bed and a legit snooze. It felt glorious. I was blown away by the added benefits of the intentionality. I didn’t wonder what else I should be doing because I knew I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I had worked hard all week, and I was experiencing the reward of a day that was meant to be full of good food, good friends, and good fun. When football was over, we went to the park and threw around our own football and skipped rocks into the creek. I was single-minded. No checking emails to see if students were struggling. No tweaking my lecture-slides. No staying home to talk geometry with one of our sons while the rest of the family went to the park. I was fully in the moment in a way I hadn’t been in years.

Doing what you think you should be doing is therapeutic. If you have a guilty habit, it’s not doing you any favors. Instead find a way to eat that chocolate or watch that show when you think you should be doing it. Being in harmony with your stated objectives is wildly freeing. Your mind, body, soul, and spirit are meant to be in harmony. That means eating something and saying, “I shouldn’t have this,” is a waste of time. Wait until you think you should have it and then enjoy it. Really savor it. Slow down and thank God for that bite of pork ragu or or that French fry or that sip of cherry ale. In everything give thanks. This works both ways. If you can’t give thanks for something, it’s a good indicator that it shouldn’t be in your life.

I always thought Sabbath-keeping was about following the rules. I thought it was about being better than other people. I don’t know if your kids should play sports on Sunday. Mine do as long as it doesn’t conflict with going to church. I don’t know if your teenagers should go to work on Sunday. (See previous answer.) I don’t know if yardwork is a chore for you or the way you relax on the weekend. I don’t know if you can use paper plates and give the dishwasher a day off on Sunday. I don’t know if you can batch cook on Saturday and take Sunday off cooking. I don’t know the ins and outs of your life or what would give you a restful mind, but I do know that doing what we think we should be doing is powerful. I do know that a Sabbath rest is mostly about slowing down to fully experience the one life you have been given and to take notice of the one life you are already living. I don’t know your situation or all the challenges you are surely facing, but I do believe you can experience a true weekly rest. And I also suspect the one who made us and invited us into this rest has much better plans for us than we have yet imagined. As a total Sabbath-keeping newbie, I just wanted to start the conversation and let you know that I’ve dipped in my toes, and the water’s fine.