“I have visited the
large offices of wealthy donors, the crowded rooms of social service agencies,
and the small houses of the poorest families. Remarkably, within this mosaic
there is a universal refrain: I am so busy. It does not seem to matter if the
people I speak with are doctors or day-care workers, shopkeepers of social
workers, parents or teachers, nurses or lawyers, students or therapists,
community activists or cooks.
Whether they are Hispanic or Native
American, Caucasian or Black, the more their lives speed up, the more they feel
hurt, frightened, and isolated. Despite their good hearts and equally good
intentions, their work in the world rarely feels light, pleasant, or healing.
Instead, as it all piles endlessly upon itself, the whole experience of being
alive begins to melt into one enormous obligation. It becomes the standard
greeting everywhere: I am so busy.”
– Wayne Muller, Sabbath:
Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest
“There is one very
large, very grim obstacle to keeping Sabbath. It is the problem of taskmasters.
God drowned the taskmasters, it’s true – dragged the whole Egyptian army to the
muddy, weedy sea bottom. Only, some survived: they clung to the flotsam of our
guilt and worry and ended up marooned in our heads. It’s actually worse: we
helped them survive. We threw them ropes, pulled them ashore, resuscitated the
unconscious ones.
Now, there’s a whole noisy, jostling
colony of them still with us, and they lapse into old habits the minute we try
to rest. They swagger and bark like men in authority – and ought to, since
we’re inclined to give way. When I try to step back from my day’s work, the
taskmasters in my head rise up, look at me menacingly, advance toward me. …
Taskmasters despise rest. They
create a culture where rest must be stolen, savored on the sly, and of course
then it’s not rest: worry over getting caught plunders rest’s restfulness. Even
if they never lay a hand on you (hard to do, since they’re imaginary), they
mount a ruthless psychological war, a propaganda campaign at once cunning and
artless, that defeats you more than whips.
Maybe you, too,
have a taskmaster or three living with you. I am learning how to let them
drown.”
– Walter
Buchanan, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul By Restoring Sabbath
An unsung
advantage of living on a small farm is being constantly surrounded by all
manner of woodland creatures. As my dad humorously pointed out as he peered
through our kitchen window a couple years ago, “…our house is like a Disney movie. There are animals everywhere. I keep
expecting them to start singing.” Spoiler: they haven’t started singing
yet. I’ll let you know if and when they do.
Last summer,
per the wisdom and counsel of close friends and family, I took a hiatus from
work to prepare my soul and body for medical school – it was a desolate and
beautiful time. In the mornings I would wake up, pray, and read, with a tall
mug of coffee over a small meal, and listen and watch these animals – the
hummingbirds and warblers, the blue jays and red cardinals, the wrens and
sparrows and rabbits and squirrels and, of course, the chipmunks.
One of these mornings
I happened upon one of our more familiar chipmunks swimming in hurried circles in
our pool – above the first step of the shallow end – his body just small enough
to neither climb out nor rest on the top step.
Frogs fall in
and drown often during the summer – mice rarely – but I’d never seen a chipmunk
trapped. As any upstanding lover of The Rescuers
Down Under and Redwall would do,
I grabbed our pool skimmer and promptly fished out our little friend. He
avoided the skimmer, likely out of fear, so it took some finagling to
successfully deliver the creature. As I gently set the chipmunk down on the cement,
he looked up at me, saying “I never said
thank you.” I replied “…and you’ll
never have to.”
Alright that
last Batman bit didn’t happen. But this did: the chipmunk stood at the edge of the
pool, on the warm cement, shivering – coat matted down thick, muscles no doubt
exhausted. I returned to my chair, and watched him as I ate and read.
While I would
love to be able to tell you that the chipmunk began singing and speaking sweet
wisdoms into my ear about life, from whence I hurriedly transcribed these
thoughts, he did not – because he’s a chipmunk and this isn’t Narnia.
This chipmunk
just stood there, warming and drying himself in the morning sunlight. At one
point, he closed his eyes, fell over awkwardly as if dead, and promptly jumped
back up to weakened vigilance. I tried to feed him a piece of banana, but he
wouldn’t have it – scurrying away to continue drying in the sun. (In
retrospect, I realize this would be analogous to someone throwing me a bag of
oranges after treading water for my life for several hours. I would probably
decline the gesture too.) After about an hour, dried and rested, the little
worker scampered back toward the house – likely for a much-needed meal. I
finished my own and left to begin the day.
I’ve been in medical school for three months now. Friends
often ask what it is like and how I am doing. Eloquence is taking a back seat
to bluntness these days, so I typically respond with the rhetorical wizardry of
“It’s really hard.”
Here’s the
best summary I’ve come across, lifted from an article on the transitioning life
of first year medical students: It’s like drinking from a fire hose. High
volume. High speed. High pressure. It feels like too much water – all the time.
It feels like swimming in hurried circles above the first step of the shallow
end. It feels like drowning. Granted, there are days in lab or moments in
lecture where it all clicks – where my soul cries “Yes! This is what I’m called
to do!” But most of the time in this season, I’m crying for a pool skimmer.
What is the
most difficult part of medical school? It’s feeling like my work is not worth
anything.
I get it.
Biochemistry will help me understand a patient’s ischemia-reperfusion just a
little more. And all those Histology slides will help me distinguish between Langerhan’s
Cell Histiocytosis and Neonatal Acne Vulgaris just a little more. And the
brachial plexus will help me understand Klumpke paralysis and Erb’s palsy just
a little more. I get it. But the work is long and frustrating and feels a lot
more like college on steroids than a high vocation.
It is fitting
that the work be this way – it refines the character and sharpens the
intellect. But it is frustrating nonetheless. I suspect we’re all frustrated
with out work at times – just like the disciples on post-Easter Monday, but
we’ll get to that.
Jesus is
showing me (and I willingly accept the admittedly silly nature of this extended
metaphor), that I am just like this drowning chipmunk. And I would venture to
say that many of us are too. We’re desperately swimming. We can’t rescue
ourselves out of work. We can’t rescue ourselves into rest. We need someone to
fish us out and restore us. We need to be warmed by the sun.
If you’re
like me, then you’re weary from the rat race (or perhaps chipmunk race) of our Sabbath-less
paradigm. This is America, where we’re defined by our social success,
marketability, and annual salary. (Or, if you’re in the church: a large
library, exceptional digital presence, and a coffee shop reputation to match.)
Perhaps
you’ve had this experience: there have been days where I’ve come home and
collapsed in my room on the floor. I won’t even crawl in bed. I’ll just lie
down awkwardly on the floor, as if dead, and fall asleep. I’ll wake up an hour
later smelling like old carpet and shame. And I’ll promptly jump back up to
weakened vigilance. And then I’ll jump right back in the proverbial pool.
We’re all
swimming in our own hurried circles, unable to climb out, unable to rest. If we
do get out, we jump right back in. We can’t help it. We’re slaves to our jobs,
our goals, our debts, our ambitions, our shames, and even our dreams. We’re
slaves to what we think is saving our lives. We’re slaves to our swimming. And we
avoid real rescue.
Our little
chipmunk friend had no control over whether I saved him. In fact he avoided being
saved. I forced it to rest. I suppose it could have just jumped back in and
drowned. Or scampered away. Or attacked me. Or started singing. But it didn’t.
It sat in the sun. It warmed itself in energy-giving light because it had no
other real choice. Rest, or die. It rested. Whether out of fear, exhaustion, or
confusion, it rested.
Psalm 23. “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”
Hosea 2. “I will make you lie down in
safety.” Isaiah 30. “In returning and
rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
Matthew 11. “Come to me, all who labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” God delights to give us
rest. He even delights to make us rest. When I was a toddler and I was
irritable, it was usually because (big surprise) I was tired, not resting or
stopping. But as stubborn toddlers are, I would attempt to stay up. (The HotWheels
were always beckoning.) It took my dad lying down with me to take a nap to
teach me to rest. He (literally) forced me to lie down in the safety of his
arms. He made me cease working. He made me stop swimming. He led me beside
still waters. The HotWheels would still be there when I woke up.
I am saying that we cease to work? Or that work is the
problem? Or that the opportunities we have in this exceptional country are to
be chastised? Certainly not. Proverbs alone would have some qualms with me, let
alone my parents and grandparents. We were made to work. This is the divine
command and stewardship of man – work Creation, leaving it better than how we
found it – in the small things and the large things – taking part in the
renewing of all.
The chipmunk
scurried back to his work near his home as well. We will all return to work
each Monday, and we should do so with perspective, eagerness, and fruit-bearing
excellence. And I suspect that this is the tension: we can make our work a
desperate scurrying and swimming – a hurried search for identity and meaning. Or,
we can restfully work in the light of the sun and near the comfort of home – in
the vision of the Son and the home of the Sabbath. We can either inevitably
drown or let our drowning be drowned.
(Forgive me
for interjecting this here: If you’re reading this looking for a discussion of
what the Sabbath entails and how we practice it, then I’m afraid I will
disappoint. I’m still learning what rest even means – what it means to Sabbath
with the Father on Sunday. But I can say this: Sunday is my favorite day again.)
Friends,
let’s stop drowning ourselves in our busyness, swimming, and enslavement to our
tasks. Let us let Jesus drown our taskmasters for us. Let’s learn how to let
them drown. Is this not what God did in Egypt? He rescued us from us our slave
bound tasks and drowned our taskmasters. The Father is eager to pluck us out of
the desperate chipmunk race of life and make us lie down in the safety and
warmth of his light. He is eager to drown our drowning. And He doesn’t need a
pool skimmer to do it.
But he
doesn’t stop there. He brings us sustenance. He brings us a meal. Jesus brings
us breakfast – better than a piece of banana or even a bag of oranges.
Remember the
disciples in John 21? Depressed, exhausted, confused after Christ’s death on
the cross? They’ve been rescued by the crucifixion. Now they’ve jumped back up
to weakened vigilance. They’re trying to return to work only to be met with frustration.
All night fishing. No fish. It’s a post-Easter
Monday without a King or a catch. It’s the beginning of work without a Sabbath.
What does
Jesus do? He brings them breakfast. He restores their frustrated work to new
heights and brings them food. It’s a story too warm and beautiful for me to
bear at times – that Jesus greets our post-Sunday work with a smile and an
invitation: “Come and have breakfast.”
Come, eat, rest. We’re invited to work and eat and rest with the King. Perhaps
this world isn’t so different from Narnia after all.
May we come
to Jesus with our laborious shivering, our coats matted down thick with heavy
burdens, our muscles and minds exhausted. Let us work near the comfort of our
true home. Stop swimming. Stop scampering. Start Sabbathing. Warm yourself in
the Son.
“The world will
break your heart ten ways to Sunday. That's guaranteed. I can't begin to
explain that. Or the craziness inside myself and everyone else. But guess what?
Sunday's my favorite day again.” – Pat, Silver Linings Playbook
References: Wayne Muller, Sabbath: Restoring the
Sacred Rhythm of Rest; Walter Buchanan, The Rest of God: Restoring Your
Soul By Restoring Sabbath; Reverend Brandon Barrett, Sermon on John
21:1-19, titled “Resurrection Love,”
delivered at First Presbyterian Church, April 2013. Can be found at
http://www.firstprescolumbia.org/templates/System-/details.asp?id=43244&PID=582047&sa_action=&sa_search=resurrection--SPC--love;
Silver Linings Playbook; and finally,
a special thanks to my good friend Brian Mesimer for his warm encouragement,
constructive criticism, and blog hospitality.
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