Restore Lent Devotional

Thank you to all of those who contributed to this devotional guide, including but not limited to Rev. Jenny Smith Walz, Rev. Tayler Necoechea, Pastor Jae Hong, Rev. Skitch Matson, Barbara Fox, Mikaela Langdon, Kate Lasko, and Fred Simmons. This booklet was edited by Evangeline Burgers.

REV. JENNY SMITH WALZ

You are invited to practice Sabbath this Lent. You are invited on a journey of restoration, joy, delight, and coming back to yourself. Now, bear with me here, because I know that this invitation might not be one you are eager to accept. Because, if you are like most of us, we struggle with sabbath. We don’t rest easily or well. We are depleted and struggle to truly feel restored. And many of us have felt the weight of restriction and even shame around keeping the sabbath.

In fact, maybe you have memories of blue laws or a list of forbidden activities on the sabbath. Maybe sabbath evokes boredom, or stricture. Maybe you experience guilt about how difficult it is, perhaps it even seems impossible, to have a sabbath practice at this point in your life. Maybe you struggle to get the point of sabbath and wonder if it’s an outmoded practice that doesn’t fit into our modern existence.

And so the invitation to practice sabbath is first to rediscover and reclaim sabbath around its deeper, more original intentions, and to do so in a way that is actually life-giving, free of guilt, shame, and stricture.

Sabbath is all about our flourishing and experiencing the fullness of life, and indeed that of all creation. Sabbath is about delight, joy, peace, and praise. Sabbath is about our liberation and has the power to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in our world. Sabbath practices help to fill our physiological, psychological, spiritual, and social needs. It can even make us more creative and innovative. Sabbath seeks our salvation and wholeness, and that of all the world.

Dear Beloveds of Kingston and Princeton UMCs,

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

~Jesus (John 10:10b)

A further part of the invitation into Sabbath Practice is to try it out, build some “sabbath muscle”, knowing that there is little in our culture that encourages us to practice sabbath. So we need each other on this journey we are undertaking, so we can encourage each other in this way of living in this world that is quite foreign to most of us.

We’ve named sabbath as one of the “jubilee” practices in our church’s vision. We further claim it as a gracious, restorative, healing space within each of us, and among us collectively. Sabbath can be thought of as occupying one whole day a week, but sabbath can take many forms. Just as Jesus showed us in the sabbath stories in the gospels, sabbath doesn’t fit so neatly into a one-size-fits-all box. Sabbath is for us and for our wholeness and delight. So on this journey, you are invited to experiment to find a sabbath form that fits this season of your life.

What’s at stake, you might ask, as we consider this invitation into Sabbath Practice? At one level, given that sabbath is so difficult for most of us to practice, we could say that nothing is at stake. If we choose not to take this sabbath journey, things will stay much as they are. However, if we take a closer look at the way things are, we might decide that our levels of burnout, our struggles with anxiety or worry, our collective struggles with compassion, our overall health, the health and justice of our societal systems, and the health of our planet aren’t what God intends for us and aren’t moving us toward the fullness of life. Sabbath practice holds within it the possibility for restoration for ourselves and the way God intends us to live, individually, and collectively. It will not change overnight, and possibly it will take longer than 40 days to see signs of new life. Yet 40 days is a start, a solid one, in fact.

And so, in this Lenten season of repentance, focused on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, let’s go on this Sabbath Journey together. Within these pages you’ll find wisdom and ideas from others in this community, along with daily Sabbath practices that invite you to bring sabbath into your worship, your work, your community, your well-being, your work for justice, your basic human needs, and your experience of delight and joy. This booklet is your map, but it’s not the only map. Bring in your own resources, wisdom, insight! And share it with your travel companions!

Come along the journey, and let’s see together how sabbath brings restoration and new life. May we have life and have it abundantly!

Peace and love, Pastor Jenny

Church-Wide Lenten Study

Princeton and Kingston UMC’s 2023 Lenten Study is called Living The Sabbath. There are nine primary components of the Lenten Program:

Restore! Small Groups

Join us for our new small group offerings this lenten season! Over the course of six weeks, we will experience numerous ways to participate and enter into God’s sabbath rest through spiritual practices and God’s invitation to be restored through Sabbath.

There are several new groups meeting:

Sunday mornings from 9:15-10:15 at KUMC

Tuesdays from 12:30-1pm at PUMC (following the noon prayer service)

Wednesday nights from 7-8pm at PUMC

All of our 2023 Lenten groups will be accessible in person or via Zoom. Sign up for your small group by scanning the QR code or visiting princetonumc.org/lent-easter.

Unwind: A Meditative Prayer and Blanket Making Workshop

Our Lenten Kickoff Event, A Contemplative Prayer and Blanket Workshop, will be held on Sunday, February 26th at 11:30 in person at PUMC, KUMC, and through Zoom. This workshop is designed designed to bring people together for a time of prayer to usher in the Lenten season. This workshop will blend contemplative prayer practices with the act of blanket making to provide a space for creative Sabbath rest. Participants will be able to utilize this blanket during their own personal prayer practice as well as within their small groups as they engage in different spiritual practices.

We ask for $12 to cover the cost of the materials needed for the workshop, however, we are willing to waive this fee for those who need it. You can sign up and pay for the event by scanning the QR code or visiting princetonumc.org/lent-easter.

Tuesday Noon Lenten Services

Our Lenten prayer services are back! Get a mid-week respite during this weekly worship service, held in our Princeton chapel. The service lasts about 30 minutes and will have a discussion time that follows, where we will briefly engage with our church-wide lenten curriculum on Sabbath. Service and discussion are open to in-person attendance, as well as online.

Restore! A Lenten Sabbath Journey Sermon Series

Beginning Ash Wednesday (February 22nd) Princeton and Kingston UMCs will begin our church-wide series called Restore! A Lenten Sabbath Journey. Together, we will ask questions like: how do you rest? What restores you? How do you honor the sabbath and keep it holy? If you are like most of us, we don’t rest easily or well. We are depleted and struggle to truly feel restored. And many of us have felt the weight of restriction and even shame around keeping sabbath. This Lent we seek restoration through sabbath practices. We seek the delight, joy, peace, and freedom the sabbath is meant to offer. We’ll explore what sabbath is (and what it’s not). We’ll look at how it matters deeply to our own flourishing and experience of the fullness of life, and indeed that of all of creation. In this season of repentance, focused on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we’ll see how sabbath and the restoration it brings is a matter of life and death for us as well.

Book

Living The Sabbath by Norman Wirzba helps us explore what it means to be transformed by God’s grace through rest and delight. We will primarily focus on Part Two of this text which focuses on Sabbath in different contexts, including work, home, economics, education, environmentalism, and worship. This book is not required for those participating in our small group or listening to our sermon series, but we hope this will be a practical resource for your continued formation.

Ash Wednesday

Drop into Princeton UMC’s Sanford Davis Room February 22nd from 9am to 5pm for prayer and meditation on our prayer labyrinth and in the chapel. Self-imposed ashes will be available. A joint Ash Wednesday service will be held at Kingston UMC at 7pm.

Easter Egg Hunt

Our annual Easter Egg Hunt is back April 1st at 10am! Children, families, and adults are all welcome to join in the fun at this intergenerational event. There will be worship time, crafts, and a visit from the Easter bunny. There will be two egg hunts offered: one for our youngest egg hunters and the other for our older children. This event happens at our Kingston Campus, outside on the playground area and parking lot.

Walking Through Holy Week

Join us daily from Monday, April 3rd to Friday, April 7th from 9am to 5pm to experience meditative silence and walk the prayer labyrinth in the Sanford Davis Room at PUMC. We also invite you to participate in our Holy Week worship services:

Maundy Thursday | April 6th, 7pm | Princeton UMC, Online

Good Friday | April 7th, 7pm | Princeton UMC, Kingston UMC, Online

Holy Saturday | April 8th, 10am | Princeton UMC Prayer Chapel, Online

Easter Sunrise | April 9th, 6:30am | PUMC Lawn, KUMC @ Carnegie Lake, Online

Easter Worship | April 9th, 10am at PUMC and Online, 10:30am at KUMC and Online

Daily Devotional

FEB 22 Ash Wednesday

These are the words we say when we put ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. With the smudge of ashes on your forehead, try looking into a mirror and repeating these words letting yourself hear them again. What do they mean to you? What is it like to hear them alongside the ashen cross you wear? (if you don’t have ashes from church, a smudge of anything earthy will do - fireplace ash, mud or soil, etc.)

Consider the word “Sabbath”.

What images, memories, or feelings does it evoke for you? Acknowledging that many of us have conflicting feelings and experiences of Sabbath, let yourself become aware of how Sabbath has (or hasn’t) been part of your life. As we begin our Lenten Sabbath Journey, you are invited to enter Lent acknowledging anything you are aware of at this moment. You are invited to let go of any shame, guilt, or the need for perfection. You are invited to be open to the restorative work of the Holy Spirit during this sacred season.

“Remember that it is from dust that you have come, and to dust you will return.”

24

Create or claim a Sabbath Symbol.

Having an object, image, sound, or place that reminds us and invites us into sabbath can be helpful as we create or rejuvenate our sabbath practice. A Sabbath Symbol can remind us of God’s presence, focus our minds, and bring us into the present moment. Find one that resonates with you. Here are some possibilities: a prayer blanket or shawl, prayer beads, a candle, a table or hand cross, the sound of a gong from your phone, a piece of art, a particular chair or area in your home.

Throughout the meditations and practices that follow, use your Sabbath Symbol to remind, ground, and focus you. Be willing to let a Sabbath Symbol choose you as you explore and practice with different options.

We are holding a prayer blanket making workshop this coming Sunday, February 26. Visit princetonumc.org/lent-easter or scan the QR code for more information.Perhaps the blanket you create could serve as your Sabbath Symbol.

What needs to be restored?

When something (or someone) is restored, it (or they) is returned to a former or original condition, position, place, or relationship. What are you aware of that needs to be restored within your being - your body, heart, mind, soul? Is there a relationship - with yourself, others, God, or even creation - in which you seek restoration? Journal, draw, meditate, or make a list as you consider. Are there one or two things that rise to the top for you, that are inviting your focus?

26 Examen-ing Your Life*

In everyday life, you might find moments of connection and disconnection with God’s grace. Respond to these small moments of attachment and detachment by noticing God’s presence. When were you most available to join into God’s activity in or around you? When were you the least connected to God or others? Take some time to sit in God’s presence, asking God to speak life into those detached spaces and bless those spaces of connection.

*Adapted from Prayer of Examen given to us by St. Ignatius of Loyola.

27 Restoration of Work

We often think of sabbath as the opposite of work. Take a moment and consider the synergy between your work (whatever ways you labor, paid or unpaid) and sabbath. How does one inform the other? Might they both be opportunities for glorifying God and for joy? As you go about your work today, whatever the sort, look for ways your work might become prayer. Look for God’s gifts and presence, for opportunities for gratitude and joy in the midst of your work.

28 Going to the Compost Pile

Life and Death are the symbols of the Lenten Season, much like the compost pile is composed of dying things that, once broken down, turn into deep, rich, black soil. In order for that new life to begin, death has to happen through things breaking down. Take a moment to journal or share with a friend something that seems to be in the “compost pile” of your life that is actively breaking down, or dying, and that may, over time, become the rich soil for new growth. (A relationship, a dream, a job, etc.)

HALT!

What happens within you when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired? Originally used in addiction recovery, HALT is a tool that has become widely known in mental and physical well-being spaces. It’s a reminder that our bodies have wisdom and often tell us exactly what they need. Recall a time when ignoring your hunger, anger, loneliness, or tiredness hurt yourself or others. Pay attention to what your body is telling you today and in the days to come.

Week One

How does this resonate with you and your experience? In what ways does it stretch and invite you?

*Tricia Hersey, Rest is Resistance, Little, Brown Spark, 2022, digital ed. p 40.

03 Breathe Love

Slowly breathe in and out for three (or more) minutes. (You can set a timer with a soothing alarm sound so you don’t have to worry about time.)

As you breathe in, breathe in God’s love and life.

As you breathe out, say or think, “I am beloved.”

04

Delight

What surprises or interests you about this quote? Recall moments when you’ve experienced delight. Might you understand those moments as Sabbath?

What delights God? Sit with these questions today, and do something that brings you delight.

*Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath, Brazos Press, 2006, p.52.

“The experience of delight is what the Sabbath is all about.”*

05 Worship and Sabbath

Come to worship this week ready to have our lives reoriented. Come ready to give thanks and praise to God. Come ready to respond to God’s grace. Come ready to see ourselves as we truly are: God’s beloved in need of God’s grace, care, forgiveness, and renewal. Come ready to have our hearts and minds cultivated so that we might more fully experience God’s presence with us and let God’s grace orient our lives around it. In doing so, may our worship be restorative. May it be sabbath.

06 Why I Work

Work (whatever ways you labor, paid or unpaid) is one of the primary ways we know our purpose in the world. At its best, it’s a place where we develop and grow, and it’s a way that we live into our discipleship calling to care for, feed, heal, teach, restore, and build up. Of course not every bit of our work so clearly embodies these ideas, so take a moment today to remind yourself why you labor. What is life-giving about it? What is purposeful? Give thanks to God as you consider.

Sabbath Spaces

What kind of space delights you and brings you to life? Where are the spaces in which you are able to rest, be restored, find tranquility, and joy? Designate for yourself one or more Sabbath Spaces. Perhaps it’s a place you already frequent. Or a new place you seek out. Or maybe it’s a place in your home that you set aside and create for sabbath moments.

08 Take a Rest, You Are Already Enough

Too often when we consider our own rest, it comes at the end of a never-ending to-do list. We think we must do more, achieve more, be more, to earn rest. We forget that God already calls us beloved and enough.

What would it be like to live into our belovedness today? What would it be like to see our rest and wellbeing as part of our purpose?

Today, practice taking care of yourself before you begin your other daily tasks. Begin with your belovedness. Rest not because you have achieved, but because God calls you enough.

Week Two

How does this resonate with you and your experience? In what ways does it stretch and invite you?

*Tricia Hersey, Rest is Resistance, Little, Brown Spark, 2022, digital ed. p 45.

10 Refresh, Restore, Be

Sit down and drink a cup of water, tea, or coffee without rushing. Don’t do anything else.

11 Wisdom’s Delight

Proverbs 8 describes how God’s Sophia Wisdom was with God the Creator in the act of creation. The Message version says this in verses 30-31:

Allow yourself to sit for several minutes experiencing God’s delight and celebration of you. What is this experience like for you? What is challenging about it? What is grace-filled about it? Share about your experience with a friend, in your journal, or with God in prayer.

I was right here with him, making sure everything fit. Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause, always enjoying his company, Delighted with the world of things and creatures, happily celebrating the human family.

Forest Bathing: Sabbath Time

Moving while meditating can have spiritual benefits. If, like me, you are ‘twitchy’ and find it hard to sit still, walking while praying or meditating can be helpful.

If you take your meditation walk “outside in nature,” that ratchets up the spiritual dividend. Being outside in the natural world, many will agree, has healing power.

For even more spiritual benefit, do “forest bathing,” known as shinrin-yoku in Japan. To do forest bathing, you keep your clothes on (!) but you relinquish your cell phone and camera. I tried it out in a group setting at a health spa. We walked into a forest and sat for 20 minutes in a sunny glade, then walked a little further and sat by a bubbling stream. We were told to just listen, just look, focus our senses on the small things around us – the pattern of light on the log, one leaf on the carpet of leaves.

Dr. Qing Li, in his book Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness, says that in Japan, doctors now prescribe forest bathing to improve sleep quality, mood, ability to focus, and reduce stress.

BARBARA FIGGE FOX

StonebridgeWalking Path

The website for Forestry England, England’s largest land manager, offers a ‘forest bathing’ guide for both children and adults. An excerpt:

Taking time to encourage children to use mindfulness is beneficial for their health and wellbeing. But how do we achieve this when we are staying at home?

• Take your time: sit or lie down on the ground for a few moments.

• Take 3 deep breaths, you may even wish to close your eyes.

• Continue to breathe slowly, trying to make the out breath a little bit longer than the in breath.

Use your senses. Just like animals in the forest do - be curious - and if your mind wanders off to other things, that’s ok, just gently bring your focus back to your surroundings. Let your mind wander through the forest of your imagination. What colors can you see? What animals live in your imaginary forest? What sounds echo through the trees? When you are ready, take 3 slow breaths and open your eyes.

For adults, the British agency recommends trying to increase the time spent in one place – up to two hours.

I’m not “up to two hours,” but after my first shinrin-yoku experience, I looked for places to practice. In Princeton, Marquand Park has lots of trees but usually has too many people. Harrison Street Park will offer more solitude. As it turns out, the best place for my forest bathing is close to home. Stonebridge has benches in the paved path that has trees on either side, and the real “wilderness forest” of the preserved land is just steps away. In nature, I can find Sabbath time.

Stonebridge Wilderness Trail

12 With Whom We Worship

We worship as part of the Body of Christ, a living laboratory of love, where we discover together the grace of the living God and our joyful responses to God’s grace.

In worship with others, we nurture one another in

We encourage one another to

As you worship this week, be mindful of those with whom you worship. How do you do these things, mentioned here, for others? How do they do them for you?*

*Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath, Brazos Press, 2006, p.164

13 Working With Others

Today as you work (in whatever ways you labor, paid or unpaid), notice the interconnections and interdependencies with others. Give thanks for those who labor with you. Who does your work benefit? On whom does your work depend? Take a moment to notice, to give thanks. Share gratitude with someone who came to your awareness in this moment.

14 Sharing Sabbath

Who might you share a sabbath moment with today? Is there someone who encourages you to rest, who helps you delight, play, give thanks? Is there someone you are feeling nudged to encourage toward sabbath today? Reach out and share sabbath with someone today.

15 Move With a Neighbor

Give yourself and someone else a sabbath moment of movement. Invite a neighbor to go on a walk, to a yoga practice, or an exercise class or workout - whatever kind of movement is life-giving for you both. Give thanks and celebrate the ways your body does so much for you day in and day out.

“the arts of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.”

“practice repentance, mercy, and forgiveness.”

16 Bless a Neighbor’s Rest

Share this blessing with someone who you sense needs it today:

Together, encourage each other in rest and resistance. Help each other name those things that need to be resisted with rest.

Week Three

17 Prepare a Meal With a Neighbor

Invite a neighbor or friend to share in creating a meal that you love. Maybe an old family recipe, or a new one that you find together. Notice what it’s like to co-create this meal together, and give thanks to God for the gift of this food that you will share.

Delightful Sounds

Play a piece of music that inspires you. Allow yourself to delight in the experience of listening.

May your delight connect you with those who helped you enjoy this music today.

May it connect you with unknown or known others who have also been inspired and delighted by this music.

May it draw you close to God.

*Tricia Hersey, Rest is Resistance, Little, Brown Spark, 2022, digital ed. p. 10.

19

Worship After Worship

As you worship this week, think of worship as a dress rehearsal for the rest of the week.

In our organized worship we hear and rehearse,

and are invited to

As you go into the rest of your week, how might you bring worship into the other aspects and activities of your life? How are creation and redemption flowing through your week beyond worship?

*Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath, Brazos Press, 2006, p.164.

20 Work and the Earth

The first work humans were given was to till and keep the garden (Gen 2:15). Today as you work (in whatever ways you labor, paid or unpaid), notice how your work is connected to and dependent upon creation. Take a moment to give thanks for what the earth is giving you and how it’s enabling your work. Consider how your work serves and keeps God’s creation. In what ways might your work help the earth rest?

21 Give Where You Live

Connect with neighbors and help the land rest together by participating in a local gift economy. In groups such as these, people give and receive out of the abundance that already is in your neighborhood. Find a local group on social media or at buynothingproject.org.

“God’s great story of creation and redemption”

“participate more fully in this divine drama.”*

22 Ground Yourself

Creation restores us. Go outside near your home or workplace, and breathe the fresh air. If it’s not too cold, take off your shoes and feel the earth or grass beneath your feet. Use your hands to touch a rock or a tree. Let energy pass between you. Feel your connection to the earth and specifically to this parcel of land on which you spend much time. Give thanks for the land that sustains us. Give thanks to God who created and is creating.

23

Local Land Sabbath

Humans are dependent on the land. The land needs sabbath as much as we do, yet the land is often treated as a commodity, rather than a partner in our joint flourishing. Look at sustainableprinceton.org or search for your local sustainability efforts, and choose a way to take action. What is one step you can take to let both you and the land on which you dwell and depend rest, flourish, and be restored. 24

Week Four

As you eat today, do what you can to eat whole, fresh foods, either prepared by you or someone else. Slow down. Be mindful of each bite, each morsel. Taste your food. Take time to imagine the journey your food has been on, from the earth to your belly. Which part of the earth grew it? Who were the people who helped it on its journey? How were they connected to the land (or not)? Delight in this food, the flavor, the costliness and the goodness of it.

Delight in Creation

Walk with God outside today, embracing your membership within creation. Admire the birds, bugs, flowers, and trees you see. Practice seeing creation not as separate from you, but as mosaic pieces of the Creator’s canvas.

Sabbath and Nature: An Invitation to Reciprocity and Renewal

For those of us who do not make a living directly from the land or sea, nature may be a sanctuary of sabbath. Whether growing plants in an apartment or gardening in the yard, walking the dog in the neighborhood or sitting in a local park, watching nature documentaries or visiting the shore, glimpsing a wild animal, listening to birdsong, or savoring the scent of blossoms or flowers, nature can afford release, rest, and restoration. A generation ago, natural scientists sought to formalize this possibility by naming it biophilia—the human urge to affiliate with other forms of life. More recently, some in the West have come to appreciate the Japanese practice of shinrin yoku or “forest bathing” (which is not—despite the name—the same as taking a bath in a forest - see page 11 for more about this). Yet whatever the form or term, connecting with nature can be a way of realizing sabbath.

Scripture, however, spurs us to more than keeping sabbath by connecting with nature. It attests that God summons us to provide nature with sabbath. For example, while Israel was in the wilderness after its Exodus from Egypt, “The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai … ‘the land shall keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruits; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord’” (Leviticus 25:1-4). These instructions from God on Sinai reissue human beings’ initial commission from God in Eden to till and keep their garden home (Genesis 2:15). Hence, both as created by God and as a people in covenant with God, human beings are to live from nature but also to let it rest. Indeed, God’s original covenant is not only with human beings (Genesis 9:9, 11, 12) or every living thing (Genesis 9:10, 12) but with the earth itself (Genesis 9:13). Accordingly, nature’s sabbath should not simply be a by-product of human rest. Rather, humans should keep sabbath in part so that nature too can rest. When we do, nature blesses us with its bounty and beauty, and we participate in God’s fulfillment of God’s covenant with nature.

Yet just as true peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of righteousness, we do not offer nature sabbath simply by letting it rest—even when we do so deliberately. Instead, extending sabbath to nature means protecting it and restoring it as well. This, of course, requires work. As a result, nature proves more than a sanctuary of sabbath—even for those who do not make a living directly from the land or sea. Nature emerges as something we are called to love.

This call to love nature does not prevent nature from being a place to rest. On the contrary, just as the Christian duty to love God and neighbor is compatible with keeping sabbath, providing nature with sabbath is consistent with taking sabbath by connecting with nature. In fact, these activities are often mutually reinforcing. So this Lent, let us consider contributing to nature’s sabbath by planting native species, picking up litter while walking the dog, decreasing the animal products in our diets, becoming involved in local land trusts and wildlife preserves, or embracing another of the many ways to foster its flourishing. Such activities reliably enhance the sabbath we find in nature and thereby are among the disciplines that constitute the rewards and responsibilities of Christian discipleship.

26 Worship, Play, and Sabbath

“Worship has one thing in common with the play of the child. . . - it has no purpose, but is full of profound meaning. It is not work but play. To be at play, . . . - not to create but to exist - such is the essence of the liturgy.”*

Come to worship this week to play, to exist, to immerse yourself in God’s presence, to delight and discover it anew.

*Romano Guardini, quoted in: Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath, Brazos Press, 2006, p.161.

27 Sabbath at Work

What would it look like to bring sabbath aims of joy, justice, peace, and delight into your work (in whatever ways you labor, paid or unpaid). It may seem antithetical, but sit with it for a bit. Where are these aims already present? What would have to change to bring these sabbath commitments more fully into your place of work? What would be different if you did? - for you, your work, for the world?

28 Sabbath Trust

Trust is an important part of sabbath practice. To practice sabbath we have to relinquish control and trust that the world can go on without us for a little while. We trust that God is there, taking care of what needs care. We trust in others who give us the space to rest. In what ways do you struggle with this aspect of sabbath? Talk with a trusted friend today, both about these struggles and about how you might help one another through them.

29 Daydream and Mind-Wander

Modern neuroscience has determined that when our brains are resting (unfocussed on a particular external task), our brains are “doing some critical work on our behalf.” Our resting brain activity is critical to our development, health, and productivity. Brains that get more rest tend to have better memory, attention, higher levels of empathy, and can better understand another’s point of view. They are more creative, innovative, and problem-solve better.* So let your mind wander today. Daydream. Imagine. And claim it as sabbath, trusting that your rest contributes to a more compassionate, kingdom-like world.

*Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. Rest, Basic Books, 2016, digital ed. P.41.

30 Sabbath as Liberation

Week Five

In the Deuteronomy version of the 10 Commandments (Deut. 5:12-15), the Exodus event, the liberation of the Hebrew people from enslavement in Egypt, is given as the reason to keep Sabbath. Sabbath is a proclamation of liberation. Sabbath is resistance. As you claim some sabbath for yourself today, consider how your rest is bound up with your own liberation. How it is bound up with the liberation of others?

*Tricia Hersey, Rest is Resistance, Little, Brown Spark, 2022, digital ed. p. 92.

31 Basic Human Needs

As you eat, drink, and breathe today, take notice. Wonder and delight at how every living thing on this planet must do these things. Consider the ways that we all share the same oxygen, the same earth which grows our food, and the water which cycles through our planet and nourishes every one of us. Connect with someone around these realities, and consider the beauty inherent therein and the inequities experienced around these needs throughout the world.

Delight Radar

Turn on your “delight radar”* today and take note of everything in which you delight today. Share about your delights with someone else today. Consider how doing this every day - noticing and sharing - might transform the world.

*Ross Gay, Book of Delights, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2019., digital ed, Preface.

“To my Ancestors: your labor and the theft of your body will not be in vain. I will rest for you. I will recapture the DreamSpace you lost. We will be resurrected together there.”*

Rest as Resistance

MIKAELA LANGDON

Every Sunday at Princeton UMC, we begin the service by repeating “I am enough because God is enough.” It may not seem like it but in the capitalist and success-driven world we live in, this is a radical statement.

Society is full of messages that we are not enough as we are. From weight loss commercials and beauty products to standardized testing and grind culture, we are constantly made to feel that success is just out of our reach. Writer and artist Tricia Hersey has dedicated her life and career to combating this messaging. She began The Nap Ministry as a form of resistance to a society devaluing the inherent sacredness of our souls and bodies. The website for The Nap Ministry states “We believe our bodies are portals. They are sites of liberation, knowledge, and invention that are waiting to be reclaimed and awakened by the beautiful interruptions of brutal systems that sleep and dreaming provide.” This is more than just an opinion for Hersey; it is a movement.

The idea of rest as resistance is not new. It can be found time and again in the history of oppressed people. Hersey (2022) says in her book, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto :

The rest movement is not a trend and is instead the ancient work of liberation. To frame rest as something Black people are finally reclaiming is to erase the history of so many of my Ancestors and those living today who have consistently seen rest as an important part of living and resistance. (p. 34).

Left: a post from Tricia Hersey’s Instagram page @TheNapMinistry

For many, rest has been a way of not just surviving but actively rejecting the oppressive systems that see them as less than human.

It is easy in today’s world to see rest as a luxury or reward but this is in direct contrast to the message of enoughness that we recite each Sunday morning. Just by existing as beloved children of God, we are worthy of rest. In her book, Hersey acknowledges that a lot of people see this as easier said than done. She advises, “You can [find] ten minutes at your desk, thirty minutes of weekend napping, or one minute of resting your eyes. Keep pondering and making space for the time to detox from technology…All these things are a form of resistance” (p. 30).

Resisting grind culture to make room for rest does not come naturally for a lot of us. It goes against the very systems that raised us. Start small. Take a few minutes every day to sit outside or close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Remember there is nothing you can do to diminish your worthiness. You are enough.

Spring St. Mural, Princeton, by @9INHANDPRESS (Instagram)

02 Death and Worship

“‘Worship

How does this resonate with you and your experience? In what ways does it stretch and invite you?

*Marva Dawn, quoted in: Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath, Brazos Press, 2006, p.164.

03 Work as Love

Have you ever been so absorbed in your work (in whatever ways you labor, paid or unpaid), that you forgot you were working? There’s something holy and divine about losing yourself within a purpose greater than yourself. It’s a taste of full, abundant life, and the sabbath aims of joy, delight, and peace mark the experience. It’s a sharing in God’s desire for all creation, and God’s love flows through you into the world. Take a few minutes. Recall such an experience and give thanks. Consider what conditions might make such experiences 04

Recall or read through the Great Thanksgiving communion liturgy. You can find one at https://bit.ly/3YHahTB (or scan the QR code.) Imagine yourself at a meal with Jesus. Gather others around this table in your meditative dream space. What is Jesus saying and doing that you need him to do? That you all need him to do? Play through the whole scene. How do you feel as you hear the words, taste the bread and wine or juice? Allow yourself to receive Jesus’s companionship and that of the others gathered with you. How might you offer this companionship to someone “in the flesh” this week?

ought to kill us.’ It needs to kill all vestiges of the ego that desperately want to claim the world for itself, and it must make room for the inspiration of Christ to take root in our lives.”*

05 Weak Flesh, Wise Flesh

Notice the blessing in your body’s brokenness and need for sabbath rest today. As best as you can, give your body what it needs today.

06

Footwashing

Fill a basin with water. Get a towel. With their permission, wash the feet of someone you love. As you do so, hear again Jesus’s commandment to love one another.

07 The Cross

Find, create, or draw a cross. Hold it in your hands or position yourself in front of it. Take a few centering breaths. Just be with this symbol of God’s love for a time. Recall the story of Jesus’s passion, the love that brought him to the cross. Let the cross be a reminder of the lengths God will go to love you, to heal your brokenness, to delight in you, to restore you to life abundant.

08

Empty

Sit in silence. Just be. Invite an experience of emptiness. There is no right or wrong way to do this. There is no accomplishing, failing, or succeeding. Try not to worry if your mind wanders. Don’t let boredom, discomfort, or uncertainty distract you from a time of being and emptying. Try this for 5, 20, or even 60 minutes. Just be.

09 The Eighth Day

Because the first Easter happened on a Sunday morning, Christians worship every Sunday, each one a mini-Easter. The early church fathers also called Sunday the 8th day. Thinking of the seven days of creation, Sunday is both the first day of the week and also the first day of the New Creation inaugurated by Jesus. Easter, and every Sunday, opens up possibilities for new life, for the fullness of life, for joy and delight, for salvation and wholeness. What is being made new in you? Rejoice today. Delight in God’s presence and unending grace.

“Sometimes the weakness of our flesh is also a kind of wisdom. Sometimes the brokenness of our bodies is also a kind of blessedness.These are our bodies. . . . Blessed and broken like the bread they were nourished with, like the body of the One who share[s] that bread with us.”*

*Erika Marksbury, “This is my Body Lenten Devotional”, Illustrated Ministry, 2023, p. 25.

How Do You Find Time For Rest?

PASTOR JAE HONG

When we think about it, finding time is a strange notion. It is not like we can go search and find a lost piece of time in between the couch cushions. Time is static, but our perspective can make a moment of time more meaningful. Think of that one person you meet with and have that life-giving conversation. That hour of time spent with that loved one surely feels more valuable than the hour spent with the TV trying to fall asleep. So then the deeper question to consider would be “Am I spending the most time on what is most valuable to me?” Before you go down your rabbit hole of all the obligations and responsibilities you have to rationalize why things cannot change (and notice that was an emotional reaction?), let’s look at it through a Christian perspective.

If worship literally means “worth-ship,” then what we worship is what we give our time and attention. If we take inventory of what/who we give ourselves to, does it align with who you feel called, or even want, to be? Our Christian belief is girded by two pillars that cannot stand on its own: justification and sanctification. Justification is our recognition that Jesus is our Savior. He rescues us and deems us worthy through Him alone. Sanctification is declaring that Jesus is our Lord. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we live each day, actively modeling ourselves to be more like Him. It would be lovely if the power of justification overwhelms and blinds us on a dusty road to change our name to Paul, but it is also Paul that steadfastly reminds us through the Epistles of the disciplines to become more like Jesus. Paul is consistent in using the imperative to command and compel us to put off our old selves and put on our new selves each day. Often, and more substantively so, growth happens through an upkeep of making the same decision each day to say “I will follow Christ today.” The theological word for this decision is repentance – the literal idea of stopping something that is missing the mark of our core beliefs and going the opposite way.

With this in mind, rest is not a break from our daily patterns to give us the energy to spin that hamster wheel one more time. Rest is the concerted choice to turn our eyes back to our birthright, to be the person your heart is silently screaming you to be. It is ironic that we need to physically exercise for our bodies to experience the peaceful rest it is capable of. Resting from exercise is the very thing that elicits our feeble attempts at restoration to be shallow and unsatisfying, like breathing air that does not have enough oxygen – it just makes us gasp for more, becoming increasingly unsatisfied with every attempt until we give up thinking that is all we deserve.

This is, in essence, what I remind people everyday as an oncology social worker. The unexpected diagnosis, complemented by the unknowns filled with the darkest of expectations, tries to take the throne of their hearts and minds. I avoid the knee jerk reaction to tell them it will be okay. Through the therapeutic relationship, I gently hold a mirror to show them a reflection from an angle that the horse blinders of anxiety have made invisible. I show them, through their words, feelings, and tears, that the throne of their heart and mind cannot be taken over, only handed over. I walk alongside them to find ways to rest, to realign their eyes to their most valued treasures and let that be the manual to find rest through their storm. Slowly, the deafening storm quiets down, not because of treatment results, but because the smallest candle made bright in the lightless room chases out the darkness.

My friends, as we wrap up the Lenten season, I pray we do not see rest as a function, but as the form, the posture, of greater freedom in Christ. Spend time with Jesus and sit at His feet on the throne of your heart. What is He telling you? How do you need to rest, to be more like the child in the center of His heart? What does He want for you? How does he rejoice over you? Where is He grieving with you? What is the narrow road to be taken to know God not just as Lord and Savior, but as abba? I pray we build the courage, the strength, and know the freedom of climbing up from Jesus’ feet to the cradle of His arms, in just the place He has been holding for us all along.

Notes