The new Sabbath

A nod to what used to be, an ode to what is

When I was in university, second year it must have been, I decided to make a Sunday Sabbath part of my week. I quit the rowing team (I was already one foot in and one foot out of the boat). I didn’t use the day to study, unlike the vast majority of my friends. I’d go to church. Go for a long walk on my own, read a bit, maybe dig around in the garden — anything was on the table as long as it didn’t feel like work. And it was good. Sometimes I wouldn’t really sink into it, mind and heart at rest, until the very end of the day. And in that sense it was work. But it was good.

Now, 10 years later, I’ve been trying to pick up a practice of Sabbath again, in a life that looks and feels very different than before. Then I was single and a student. Now I am a wife and a mother to two young children. Sometimes I miss my old life, pine for it even. Like when we’re sitting down to dinner and the three-year-old is screaming at the top of her lungs and what used to be an opportunity for quiet and conversation turns into a grand negotiation. Or, when faced with a 20-minute window to myself, I think about the free time that I used to have and surely didn’t appreciate. And then there’s the lost ability to sleep in or sleep undisturbed or sleep at all. But this is the life that I have. (Even the life that I once longed for.)

And in that spirit, here’s a list of guiding principles for Sabbath that capture what my life looks like right now:

• be unproductive and inefficient — make yourself as useless as you can to capitalism. and especially don’t just ‘rest up’ so you can be ready to work hard for the coming week. but do take that long nap, of course. and then bring the baby into the bed with you to feed him and linger for a while longer, laughing as he smacks his face into your belly button and reaches for the Wendell Berry anthology that you fell asleep to, referring multiple times to the family tree at the back and wondering how he came up with such an elaborate world.

• go to church. *most of the time.

• keep your phone off. *except for calling the taxi and tracking where your husband is at in his bike race and sending that happy birthday message to the friend you adore.

• buy nothing that could wait for another day. *except the latte from the little coffee truck near the finish line, which could wait, but would rather not.

• don’t use the washing machine; even machines can use a sabbath. *but do hang the laundry that ran last night, so it doesn’t end up smelling like wet dog.

• spend time outside. notice something, like the texture of the clouds, or the way the noisy black birds with the long yellow tails (ortho-something) are constructing new nests in the toborochi tree that will swing in the wind.

• engage in some small creative act. write, or sketch, or just keep feeding the baby

• eat good food. *made by Andrew

• and, keep doing everything else… feed the baby (did you notice how I already mentioned that one?), change the diaper, sit with her while she’s on the potty. heat up the leftover crepe and spread the maple syrup in a circle, just the way she likes it. pick up the dropped food off the floor. pick it up again. pour the milk, and pour it again after it spills. say that the small lake on the table looks like a monster and give it a mouth and eyes. manage a meltdown, as best as you know how. sweep the floor, but only just enough for today. run the bath, run after the naked toddler, run your fingers through her hair. lay with him in the dark, feed him, sing to him, while he tosses and turns and eventually his small body yields to sleep.

And then call it a Sabbath. And call it good.