I'm exhausted this week. Our oldest started Kindergarten and we are all up and running by 6:30 am. We need to adjust. It'll take awhile. And then, just as we bein to setle into the pace, we will leave town for a week of retreat/vacation in the Adirondacks. We are so fortunate to have been led to Silver bay, a YMCA facility on Lake George in Upstate NY that offers special hospitality and respte for pastors and their families. We will spend a week. Its an 8-hour drive, but it takes four hours just to realize we're heading for rest. It takes a couple of days before we sink into the rhythm of rest. And its clear that in order for us to really rest, we have to go away. Far away, into isolation, off the grid, unplugged. “The apostles gathered around Jesus and told him all that they had done ands taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.” Mark 6:30-31.
I don’t vacation very often. We took no summer break this year. The last time I took a week off was in the winter. Jesus, Justice, Jazz New Orleans was pastoral ministry with its own kind of service and responsibilities. I’m also not an office-bound parish administrator. I spend my time meeting people, planning for mission with various partners, learning and teaching, helping and praying. I have at least four meetings a month in Harrisburg. I am invited to teach and lead groups in various locations around the synod. Toss in Peter’s Porch, prison visits, various committee meetings, and sermon/teaching preparation each week and I have an active schedule. Most nights I work on the computer and read from 8:00 until 10:00 pm. And that is taking into consideration that my first vocation is to be a husband and a father. The rhythm of my week always begins with Sunday worship. But every week has its own character, experiences, opportunities, and challenges. Sometimes I feel more like a human doing than a human being. You know what I mean? I think this is a dangerously unhealthy aspect of American culture. Our value and our livelihood is based on how productive we are. Isn’t there something flawed in our obsession with work and production? What if there is a better way to be human found in the life of Jesus? What if we are called by grace to rest, to God's time that is not urgent and harried, but slow and gentle.
We leave for the Adirondack mountains on September 25 and return October 5. We love this special time of family retreat. We canoe on the lake, take hikes, go on leaf hunts, make apple sauce, visit friends in Vermont, and rest! As a child my congregation offered annual winter retreats to the Lutheran Camp. These were special weekends with out church family that blended worship, fellowship, play, and rest. I still feel that we need an occasional reality check and a spiritual recalibration by way of retreat.
Dr. Marva Dawn wrote a book called, “Keeping the Sabbath Wholly.” It is a book Cherie and I have read and cherished. Though we often forget the gracious implications of the chapters found in it, the book is a reminder to us of our need to cease, rest, embrace, and feast. Dawn wrote, “One of the ugliest things about our culture is that we usually assess a person’s worth on the basis of his or her productivity and accomplishments. One of the first questions we ask when meeting a stranger is, “What do you do?” She continues, “The need to accomplish also leads to a terrible frenzy about time. The criterion for everything in our society has become efficiency.” Sunday mornings are like races for me anymore. The tyranny of getting it done on time has detracted from my desire to worship. I know that I need a break.
Is Sunday a Sabbath for you? How does that time become holy, connecting you to the endless and eternal God? How much of retirement do you spend doing things to stay busy? Does Jesus invite us into a healthier rhythm of life by seeking solitude and rest in the grace of GOD? May we listen to Jesus, who gives rest to our souls. Amen.
