The Spire Newsletter – June 2016

Dear Edwards Church Community,

My late father-in-law was a very organized and productive person. (My own father was less meticulous but also very productive. That’s a different letter.) Arthur was systematic even about rest. A scientist and engineer by training, he admired the work ethic of people like Edison.  A keen appreciator of all the good things in life, he also liked to nap. Tales of his early years in my mother-in-law’s family include the teasing Arthur took for maintaining his practice of a short nap after lunch, whenever possible on weekdays and always on the weekend.

Arthur was not afraid to take a little teasing, because he knew how beneficial those naps were. What his brothers-in-law probably did not know, and what I learned only by sleeping in the same house during visits, was that Arthur was attuned to his own sleep needs. He knew the circadian rhythm of his body. He would go to bed an hour or two after dinner, wake in the middle of the night, work for an hour or two, and return to bed until shortly after sunrise. He said that time in the middle of the night was extremely productive. The quiet allowed for sustained concentration, and the proximity to dreams allowed for inspiration.

Just as he built regular rests into a busy work life, Arthur believed in longer rests built into longer recurring time periods.  He called this “time to let the fields lay fallow,” an allusion to the Biblical concept of Sabbath.  In Genesis, we read that God did the work of initiating creation over six days, and on the seventh day rested.  In his popular book The Sabbath, the theologian, philosopher and professor of Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Abraham Josuah Heschel writes movingly about God giving us, in the commandment to rest and worship on the seventh day, a way to imitate our maker and reconnect with that part of our own nature that is most connected to God. Observing a Sabbath of rest and reflection is needed to remember who and whose we are. It is a “time to let the fields lay fallow.”

Like many of us in modern life, my father-in-law’s daily, weekly, and monthly rhythms were more agrarian than industrial: work rarely stopped completely. It just paused for sleep, meals and a little socializing. No 40 hour week. Mostly, he just worked until he couldn’t work any longer. His work earned him a living and gave him a sense of meaning and satisfaction. But the deepest meaning and satisfaction (I know from slow conversations woven around long quiet pauses) was only realized by making time for the less obviously “productive” pursuits, like taking vacations of a week or longer, traveling to new places or to old haunts to visit friends and family not seen in years.

This summer, I hope you have and take the opportunity for some real Sabbath time.  I hope it includes church on Sunday and a deepening sense between Sundays of where God is (everywhere).  Let the fields lay fallow.  Wait in the quiet and see if you can sense where and how the Spirit is moving.  Read a novel, or some poetry, or both.  Read a whole book of the Bible. (Start with Ruth, maybe.  A great story: short, poignant, and satisfying.)  Visit old friends and family.  Get used to eating outside.  Savor the fresh produce and short sleeves of summer.  Let it all remind you of who and whose we really are, and share that sense with anyone who needs to know.

Blessings,
Michael

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