There’s a quality to the Sabbath that we haven’t made ourselves. It’s something we enter. Here’s a reading from Abraham Heschel, whose beautiful book called “The Sabbath” teaches so much about this day. The Sabbath, he writes: ‘is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all. It is not a date but an atmosphere. It is not a different state of consciousness, but a different climate; it is as if the appearance of all things is somehow changed. The primary awareness is one of our being within the Sabbath rather than of the Sabbath being within us. We may not know whether our understanding of the day is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.”
Wendell Berry has a beautiful book of Sabbath poems called: “Timbered Choir.” They written for the Sabbath. This is Number 10:
“Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.
When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.”
May this week be a watered garden for you.