Sabbath: Unessential work?

It turns out that much of our work has been unessential. Who knew? 

For many, many years Doug and I kept Sabbath together. He wanted to keep Sabbath on Saturday and it was a bone of endless contention. When I was a kid Saturday was for trips to the Woolworth’s. In the 80s in Traverse City, Michigan you could still have lunch at a Woolworth lunch counter on a Saturday. My parents were always a bit overprotective, but we knew all the Woolworth’s staff by their first names and the store was tiny. I could browse with my allowance unattended.

It is where I got my first tube of lipstick (red, if you are curious). 

I don't want to keep Sabbath on Saturday,  I like to buy junk and get a hamburger. However, Doug and I both agreed on the importance of the idea of Sabbath. Indeed, I kept Sabbath rigorously on Sunday during my first two years of college and organized my studying schedule accordingly. 

I was incredibly driven during college. In hindsight, the study schedule that I kept was ridiculous. I hadn’t been a very great student in high school and I think if I am honest that I likely have a couple learning disabilities. I just went into overdrive trying to compensate for this while I was in college. I was also attending Calvin College, and that whole Calvinist work ethic thing is no joke. This work schedule was manageable when I was keeping Sabbath, but it almost destroyed me when I stopped. I got a horrible, recurrent case of Mono that lasted for almost 9 months. 

I believe in Sabbath.

Yet, it certainly is beginning to feel like the proverbial month of Sundays around here. My typical Sabbath activities: walks, soup-making, novel reading, napping, watching television, knitting, are wearing thin. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing! 

I think part of the reason that I am enjoying this blog so much is that it feels a little like work. In the book of Genesis we learn that labor was cursed in the Fall, like childbirth. In a perfect world both kinds of “labor” would be easier, but labouring itself would still be part of a good creation. We need to be able to find good work during this time of Quarantine, even as we reflect on the fact that our labor is not as essential as we once thought that it was... 

Maybe this is a good time to reflect on the real meaning that we attach to both our work and our rest.