My Sabbath/Your Sabbath

A friend recently sent me an e-mail which ended by saying  - "Doesn't sabbatical have something to do with the Sabbath and the day of rest?!?"  Her question got me to thinking about how we define "Sabbath" and what it really has to do with a "day of rest." 

And so I went back to the first wonderful creation story in Genesis, the one where God mythologically completes the whole shebang in six days and then blesses the seventh day as a special day because the world was complete.  I think it was a special day not so much because God sat around like some holy couch potato but because in ceasing the usual Godly day to day creating, it gave God a chance to really look around at the world that had been made and marvel once again that it was all very good.

Sabbath and sabbatical are linked by a common root word in Hebrew meaning not really to rest but rather to cease.  And so on this sabbatical, I have not so much chosen the holy couch potato route as I have chosen to cease my usual pastoral responsibilities in order to reconnect with God and with my own spiritual self.

And so I may look quite busy to some people - what with clearing a circular space 40 feet in diameter for the labyrinth I will build in August, hauling branches, raking millions of pine needles, unearthing rocks, and marking small trees that will have to be removed even as I check and re-check travel arrangements for our upcoming family adventure in Peru.

However, I am also taking the time each day to intentionally pray and reflect upon the deep and abiding relationship we have with the earth - and even to sit outside with the dogs.  The breeze and the sunshine help me to feel closer to the earth God created, and watching as the sacred space of the labyrinth begins to emerge I believe touches some part of my very soul.  It is at those times that I know that all of it is very good.