Sometimes the window is empty

Sometimes the lights are on but there isn’t anything to sell.

Sometimes, you catch the store between displays.

Sometimes an empty window lets you fill in what matters.

Sometimes you just need to let eyes rest.

Sometimes the blank space before the next onslaught gives perspective.

Sometimes even the mannequins need to rest.

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My advent ebook is now available as a downloadable pdf, advent2008, and as a digital book on yudu.

Seven years and 2751 moments later

What’s been going through my mind since early this morning has been the idea of sabbatical. Every seven years there was supposed to be a break, a year to let the land recover in ancient Israel. During that year you still took care of your animals, but the work of farming the land stopped.

The idea was that there would be enough that would come up from what had spilled the previous year to feed everyone. The idea was that God would provide. The idea was that everything needed a break.

It’s been seven years. We need a break. Not from the vigilance, I guess, and not from the grief, I guess. But many people found their lives changed that day and resolved to live differently. Some of us have, some of us haven’t. But all of us have been affected.

It’s a good time to stop and think. What difference has our resolve made? Now that your life has changed, what has changed? What if we stepped back for awhile to see what comes up from seed?

Catheen Rittereiser stops.

She started last year by stopping twittering. She’s doing it again this year. But this year, she’s taking stopping a step further. She’s inviting us to stop, on purpose, and to think of the moments that the 2751 people who died on 9/11/2001 don’t have.

Here’s the power of those moments. Living the day thinking, “they didn’t get to do this” – what ever “this” is, the ordinary stuff of our lives, is pretty compelling.

Go read Cathleen.

Think about stopping.

And in the silence, see what grows.

take a break, would you?

It happened again. I got a big project done. Not big by most standards, but it’s the test of a communication project for work. If it works, it will help us. And it was on my “by the end of the month” list and it was at the top of my “get it done today” list.

And at the end of a long day I hit send on the email.

And I walked down the hall.

And I walked back toward my office and thought, “what will be in the next edition?”

No break, no rest, no celebration. Just on to the next one.

And even when I stopped that train, I started thinking about the posts I could be writing tonight. Or the other things on the list. Or….

I understand all the work we have to get done. I understand that you have way more than I do. I understand that you have so much to get done before ____.

But you know, when we get stuff done, we need to be glad, to be relieved, to take more than a minute.

So I’m going to hit publish and go sing. And later? Make some tea. Or some other ritual.

Because we need breaks, too.

Right?

time is hard to take

When I started blogging in earnest,  just over two years ago, I was talking about time:

What counts as Sabbath rest? For a pastor, it isn’t whatever it is thathappens on Sunday, since, while energizing, that certainly isn’t resting. But is in just “not going to the office”?

If I get a call from the office, does that mean that the whole day doesn’t count or only a part of it?

If I work on the insulation in the crawlspace which hasn’t been done for 3 years, does that violate sabbath or is that actually bringing a sense of rest to the “to do” list?

What about writing a blog entry, does that count or is that working as well?

If I try to pray and I fall asleep, is that a problem?

Obviously, the sabbath is about giving God time…and the silence people that I read would say that sleeping is okay, and time with family is okay. But what about the office call…when it helps get someone money for a funeral trip…but which could have been planned for…but which only took a few minutes on the phone…

And what about the writing?

I finally got the crawlspace insulation done, a couple months ago (which means it took me five years), but I’m still struggling with rest and work cycles, with keeping peace, with balancing listening and speaking.

Tonight has illustrated the challenge well for me. I had the opportunity to be quiet, after the meetings, after the conversations, after the emails. It’s the night before a potentially busy week, with plans for Saturday in flux. It’s been a weekend with two times of teaching (with the accompanying preparation). Tomorrow night I’ll be here for another meeting which, while wonderful (really), is still time. And so tonight, this quiet evening, should have been a perfect time for grabbing a book, grabbing a Bible, grabbing a cup of tea, and sitting and reading and listening.

Instead, it has been hard to take the time. I have in me, apparently, a drivenness. It is difficult to stop and listen, to be at peace.

Ironically, it is easier to confess to you my inability to stop than it is to just stop.

Is is possible that there is in the confession a desire to receive compassion, empathy, understanding…from you? I mean, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You are, as I am, a part of a culture which, whether inside or outside church, finds stopping difficult. We feel as though we must be productive in our work, in our rest, in our play, in our wasting of time. If we can’t do something, we must at least create the facade of busyness.

And it is true, as I said, inside the church and outside the church.

No wonder those inside the church wish that we were outside, where we didn’t have all these church activities and obligations for niceness and limits. No wonder those outside the church wish, at times, they were inside, believing in something that matters, no matter how delusional.

What if, however, God were to say, come here, weary friends, and I will give you rest? I mean, if God really were the creator of everything and if that God, who had the capacity to squish us like a bug (or zap us with lightening), actually said, just rest, wouldn’t that be reason to rest?

And if we could and did, wouldn’t that be, well, time well spent?

Two years of this and I’m still trying to understand.