Today I kept the Sabbath.
I guess it wasn’t a “real” Sabbath technically speaking – it’s not a saturday…and I did a fair amount of work. But I had declared today a Sabbath even before I went to bed last night.
In the business of academic life – especially with finals and paper due dates looming ominously on the horizon – I’d been forgetting to devote time to myself. And everything from my mood to the tidiness of my apartment was starting to show it. So my rule was that today I wouldn’t do anything related to school.
I’ve made it a practice to try to take Sabbaths throughout my time in grad school – sometimes I manage better than others – but I’ve found that taking a day to focus on something, anything, that isn’t school or work related is immensely helpful.
Today I spent time catching up on some tv shows, I cleaned, did dishes, did a load of laundry, ironed, and made banana bread (using a recipe I from mom’s old recipe box!). That’s a lot of work for a “sabbath” perhaps – but just what I needed to allow myself to re-center and de-stress.
In the business of our lives I think it’s important for all of us to find time to keep Sabbath – whether it’s a weekend or a Wednesday. Whether it’s 1 hour or 24. Because if we become so overburdened by our work or school we’ll wind up not having room in our over-packed schedules for ourselves. Let alone God.
How do you keep Sabbath? How do you find time to let yourself re-center and just be?
My Eyes Have Seen 