Sabbath, Yoga, Advent

Monday is the day I set aside for Sabbath. Despite all of my reading, preaching, and blogging about Sabbath, I am not sure I am doing so well on the sabbath front. I do take the day away from the office, away from email, and focus upon my family and upon caring for myself. But I also end up doing a bunch of household chores that need doing. Some Mondays I find I feel more like I have connected and rested than others.

This week was a special gift. Although Ray was in bed with a migraine, Jacob and I had a great day together. It was one of those magical days where he listened to me almost every time I asked something of him. He put his little hand in mine as we did errands. He snuggled with me. He drew me pictures. He soaked in the time in the library with such pleasure it made my heart warm.

Ray was able to get up and felt well enough for me to make the yoga class I have begun taking on Monday afternoons. It has been a great class for me for two reasons. One is that it is challenging, which I like. The other is that this teacher has a habit of asking us to set an intention for the class in a word or short phrase. It is fascinating to listen to my heart to hear what words emerge. This week I thought of my words from last week: hope, clarity, peace. But every time I returned to these words, they came back as hope, clarity, purpose.

Apparently, I need to spend some reflecting upon purpose. Since Advent is a time for just such a thing, I'll take that as a nudging from the Holy Spirit.

Laughter

Tuesdays are always a difficult. I generally rest well on Mondays, and put off most/all thoughts of "work" on that day. I am trying to live into Sabbath, trusting God in meaningful ways.

But Tuesday, my thoughts turn to my unending to do list. As I said, I am still living into Sabbath. One of the things I am still trying to do is keep from being a work-a-holic the rest of the week. After all, I'm not really trusting God if I only trust for one day, and then work the rest of the week like everything is up to me. Clearly, it is not!

At the conference in Indianapolis last week, one pastor had reflected, "like the poor, to do lists are always with us." Yesterday felt especially draining. I went home at 4:30 to spend time with my family because I was out of energy and had a 6:30 meeting. As I sat in my chair at 6:10, I found myself wondering if I was getting sick. That set off a new stream of thought and mild anxiety about my to do list.

But then we had our meeting. It happened to be a Jacob' s Well leadership team meeting. We laughed- a lot. As we discussed the items on our agenda, laughter seemed to fill us at every turn.

By the time the meeting was over, my headache was gone, and the weight of exhaustion had lifted. What a gift.