Tag Archives: sabbath

Sabbath’s Circle

Have a great 23rd of July, 2012.

A virtuous circle

Begins at the end

Ends at the beginning.

A source of refuge

Moments of discovery within

No urgency

Besides just breathing.

Just be

With all nature’s cycles

Brings wholeness

Sabbath liberates.

I find life events are increasingly filled with synchronicity. When I posted the poem Auditory Illusion, I had listened to a thunderstorm chase itself in and out of the Spokane area. It thundered overhead, moved off, and returned several times circling in and out of the area for about an hour. After the post, I reflected on life’s circularity as it is and scribbled some thoughts down before going to bed last night.

I heard the rain differently than it was. It sounded like the storm was over, yet, when I got up, it was raining hard. The eaves of the building had tempered the sound. Today, in Wayne Muller’s Sabbath, he wrote about the etymological roots of the words absurd and obedient. Absurd is from the Latin surdus which means deaf and obedient from the Latin to listen. Yesterday, listening or mislistening to the storm and its intensity reminded me of the frequency I misunderstand parts of life and its relationships. Wayne Muller was friend of Henri Nouwen and said he was “a fiercely astute observer of our worried, overfilled lives [and that] … the noise of our lives made us deaf, unable to hear when we are called, or from which direction” (p. 84). I am commited to daily moments of silence and a weekly Sabbath to help me listen when called.

Wayne Muller concludes each short chapter with a brief reflection for Sabbath. The chapter Let it Be is also the title of my favourite Beatles’ songs. Today, the reflection was from Brother David Steindl-Rast an Austrian monk.

“Let the silence drop like a pebble right into the middle of the day and send its ripples out over its surface in ever-widening circles” (p. 86).

Muller, W. (1999). Sabbath: Restoring the sacred rhythm of rest. New York: Bantam Books.

Sabbath – A Poem

Recently, I posted Humility and referenced Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. He suggested we all need to take time, disconnect, and do those things and be with those people in our immediate lives which bring us moments of quiet and refuge. He has offered a new awareness for me of what was missing in my life, a calm, tranquil, restful time I share with those immediately around me and my self. I am disconnected for the next 36 hours. I will just be.

I leave with a found poem of sorts. I chose words from the book that exemplified my understanding of Sabbath. I look forward to comments and likes when I return on Monday morning.

Shine the light

Reveal a next step

On the journey.

Moments of remembrance

Blessing gifts received

Delight in life

Reflect in wonder.

Uplift the spirit

Care for the body

Rest your soul

Take refuge

Take sanctuary

In the moment

Hibernate, lie fallow.

Insight, wisdom, compassion

Arise from stillness

A bell chimes

Time transformed

Mindfulness consecrates the day

Timeless words revere the day.

Bring forward

Right speech, right action, right effort

Break bread

Companionship

Refuge.

Heal, liberate, surrender

Receive and give

Lovingkindness

In each breath

An inner light attracts

Leads home

In each breath

The rhythms of life, earth, action, rest

The Sabbath arrives.

Humility

I am reading Wayne Muller‘s Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. He shared the following: “The word humility, like the word human, comes from humus, or earth. We are most human when we do no great things. … We are simply dust and spirit–at best loving midwives, participants in a process much larger than we. … We are granted the tremendous blessing of knowing that we do very little at all by ourselves” (p. 176).

He closed that chapter with a short, tongue-in-cheek poem by Robert Aitken Roshi who examined more closely humility and the role of soil in the human condition:

When people praise me for something

I vow with all being

to return to my vegetable garden

and give credit where credit is due.