Dear One’s of St. C’s, 

In sitting down to write to you this week a flurry of news headlines went through my head.  There is so much violence, so much injustice, so much illness, and pain that the news headlines reveal to us about the state of the world. This winter I did a study on trauma and one thing that came up in a lot of the literature that I read was then when we hear about someone else’s trauma our initial desire is not to believe it, because believing a horrible event happened to someone else costs us something.  Just by hearing about traumatic event our body and mind has a response that impacts our nervous system.  

Sometimes it feels like in order to find joy or sanity in our lives we have to deny horrible events or simply look the other way.  And of course the more privileged you are and the more you can distance yourself from the event the easier the ability to just look away. As Christians, we cannot just look away.  We have to be present to our hurting world because we believe God’s love is present and we have some of that love to offer to others. And we believe God desires a more just world and that God calls us to participate in creating that more just world. 

But we do need rest, play, and joy to sustain us and to remember what we are even hoping to create together. I think the notion of sabbath could really assist us right now as we struggle with wanting to look away and wanting to participate in healing for ourselves and our world.  The notion of sabbath is not about just resting.  It is about seeing all the good work you have been participating in and then taking a day (or afternoon) for just goodness and delight.  It is about seeing the pain and violence in our world and intentionally putting it aside for a set period of time.  Sabbath is about taking time to develop an imagination for a world without violence and pain.  It is a time for you to participate in the world you hope for.  You get to create this world with God and friends and family. 

Tips on planning sabbath

• Think about things you do that bring you delight and try to do at least one of those things during your sabbath

• What do you have from your week (or day) that you feel gratitude over (glimpses of the kingdom of God) Think of small and large gratitudes

• What is weighing heavily on you in your life that you could set aside for this day (or hour)? 

with care,

Meghan