第44期：What Happened to Sunday

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Today our life and work rarely feel light, pleasant or healing. Instead, the whole experience of being alive begins to melt into one enormous obligation. It becomes the standard greeting everywhere:“I am so busy.”We say this to one another with no small degree of pride. The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and,we imagine, to others. To be unavailable to our friends and family, to be unable to find time for the sunset, to whiz through our obligations without time for a single mindful breath—this has become the model of a successful life. Because we do not rest, we lose our way.We lose the nourishment that gives us help.We miss the quiet that gives us wisdom. Poisoned by the belief that good things come only through tireless effort, we never truly rest. This is not the world we dreamed of when we were young.How did we get so terribly rushed in a world saturated with work and responsibility, yet somehow bereft of joy and delight? We have forgotten the Sabbath. Sabbath is the time to enjoy and celebrate what is beautiful and good—time to light candles, sing songs, worship, tell stories, bless our children and loved ones, give thanks, share meals, nap, and walk. It is time to be nourished and refreshed as we let our work, our chores and our important projects lie fallow, trusting that there are larger forces at work taking care of the world when we are at rest. Sabbath is more than the absence of work. Many of us, in our desperate drive to be successful and care for our many responsibilities feel terrible guilt when we take time to rest. But the Sabbath has proven its wisdom over the ages. Many of us still recall when, not long ago, shops and offices were closed on Sundays. Those quiet Sunday afternoons are embedded in our cultural memory.