The Year of the Sabbath

We were in Iowa for three days.  Yesterday we had a lovely day with my cousins and aunt and uncle in Cedar Falls.  As always, at my mom's, there is a little bit of sitting around and picking up random books.  I picked up Wayne Muller's Sabbath. I have this book at home on a more buried shelf.  I have read it a couple times.  Nice to read it again.  The main point is that every world religion has a commandment or precept to take a rest. Honor the sabbath. Rest. Without it we just can't go on.

Julie McCarty from our church has a website www.spiritualdrawingboard.com.  In a recent post she suggested we pick a one or two word spiritual mantra for the new year.  I think I'm picking "Sabbath."  "Margin" is a close second.  It's not that anything is so wrong, on the contrary, it's almost that we are too blessed. Too many activities, too many responsibilities, too many obligations, too many hobbies, and too many possessions.

I realize this is an old blog topic for me.  That's the beauty of this blog for me--to see the patterns in my life.  Two weeks ago I said to my husband, "I think I'm reaching an unprecedented level of burn-out."  Bill replied, "Oh, no. I've seen you this burned out many, many times before."   Great.

So maybe it's just the ebb and flow of life.  Breath in and breath out.  Maybe it's not broken.

Maybe I don't need to quit my job, leave my husband, sell the kids, buy a one room cabin in the wilderness and grow all my own organic vegetables.  In his book Helping Parents Practice, Edmond Sprunger suggests that we look for horses, not zebras.   What?  Well, instead of seeing a problem as some exotic thing that needs a complete overhaul, perhaps we should see it as a horse.  It might be just a little something that needs tweaking and maintenance.

Margin?  Everyone needs a little. Time, money, space. . .
It might be as simple as shifting lessons by 15 minutes so that I'm not rushing from picking up the kids to doing Mary's hair for gymnastics to getting a snack in seven minutes before my student shows up at the door.  

Sabbath?  In the music business Sundays are often a work day?  If I'm working on a Sunday, that just means blocking a different day or part of the day to rest.  It might be as simple as remembering to block two weekends a month from scheduling recitals and workshops. Then I can do the work I love, knowing that the next weekend I'll have free with my family.

I'm sure next Christmas, if I'm still blogging, I'll be writing again about the season being too busy bla bla bla.  But, it's okay.  Maybe as my good friend told me, there is no balance, only the ebb and flow of the seasons of life.  Breathing in and breathing out.  The snow and the flowers.  We all need rest. No guilt. No zebras.

I'm still going to make this the year of sabbath and margin.  But I'm not going to beat myself up about it.  It's only a horse.