Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest

It has become our standard greeting: "I'm so busy." Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, the author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live? shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal--a refuge for our souls.

Our relentless emphasis on success and productivity has become a form of violence, Muller says. We have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between effort and rest, doing and not doing. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance, longing for time with friends and family, longing for a moment to ourselves.

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. This consecrated time, Muller affirms, is available to all of us, regardless of our spiritual tradition. We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a sabbath afternoon, a sabbath hour, a sabbath walk. Sabbath time is time off the wheel, time when we take our hand from the plow and allow the essential goodness of creation to nourish our souls.

With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness. In Sabbath, he has given us a revolutionary tool for cultivating those necessary human qualities that grow only with time: wisdom, courage, honesty, generosity, healing, and love.

It's sad that we need a book to remind us of the importance of scheduling time to rest and worship. But because we can work, shop, achieve, and otherwise stay busy every hour of every day of the week, we do. The statement, "I am so busy" has become a frighteningly common lament, according to author Wayne Muller. Our perpetual state of busyness represents a war on our natural rhythms that demand quiet and renewal in order to be emotionally, spiritually, and creatively fertile.

Honoring the Sabbath need not be a commitment to a specific day of the week, explains Muller. In fact, it can be a yearlong retreat or a morning walk--"anything that preserves a visceral experience of life-giving nourishment and rest."

Far more than an interesting concept, this is a good read. Each chapter is provocative and fluid, with topics such as "Fear of Rest," "Dormancy," and "The Way of Enough." At the end of his chapters, Muller offers stories, poems, or practices that speak to the themes of the Sabbath. --Gail Hudson