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The Story of Creation in the Book of Genesis provides us wisdom about limits in our activity. Genesis 2.1-3 reads:
And the sky and the earth were completed, and every creature inhabiting them. God, then, completed by the seventh day the work that God had made, and God ceased by the seventh day from doing all the work that God had made. Then, God blessed the seventh day and set it apart a holy day, for on it God had ceased from all the work that God had done in creating.
*Author's Translation
Sabbath is seen as inherent to creation. Restfulness, or ceasing, is as important as work. We can seek to enjoy one day weekly for this ceasing. We need to have little sabbaths daily, also: short periods for quiet, rest, and meditation. We can find little opportunities for sabbath daily, if we place a priority on intimacy with Christ. If we are contemplatives, we need to engage in restful contemplation daily, having at least one longer sabbath.
The act of sacred ceasing is not only to rest, though that is part of it. Sabbath is time for celebrating. Richard Foster and Emilie Griffin, in Spiritual Classics, present celebration as a corporate spiritual discipline. We celebrate together with spiritual brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. Indeed, every Sunday is a little Easter, a day of celebrating the Resurrection.
Still, communal spiritual disciplines are empty and ineffectual without practicing them in our daily lives. I bring into the Body of Christ gathered the life in Christ that I am living each day.
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Prayer, meditation, and contemplation provide daily opportunities for sacred ceasing and resting in God. This is enhanced in contemplation. We release ordinary thoughts and perceptions and rest in the Bosom of the Beloved. This resting does not mean total cessation. Sabbath resting is an act of faith and celebration, wherein we remain, usually, fully aware of our openness to the Spirit within and all around us. Often, spiritual sensations will arises of joy and deep, loving contentment.
Sabbath, then, does not mean a total stop. The ceasing is a ceasing from the "ordinary" to open to the "holy," the "totally Otherness." This means opening to enjoy, to celebrate, the Presence and Goodness of the Divine Beloved who lives in us and rejoices through us.
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*Data on John P. Robinson and from David C. McCasland in Our Daily Bread. March-April 1998.
*Brian K. Wilcox lives with his wife, Rocio, their two dogs, St. Francis and Bandit Ty, and their fish, Hope, in Southwest Florida. Brian is vowed at Greenbough House of Prayer, a contemplative Christian community in Georgia. He lives a contemplative life and inspires others to experience a deeper relationship with Christ. He advocates for a spiritually-focused Christianity and the renewal of the focus of the Church on addressing the deeper spiritual needs and longings of persons and empathic relating with diverse spiritual traditions, East and West. Brian has an independent writing, workshop, and retreat ministry, for all spiritual seekers.
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