Sabbath 8: the sabbath walk

Sabbath 8: Meeegan's post, Tripp's post

Before we get to this week's reflections, Meeegan asked a really good question in regard to my post on last week's exercise: how did it feel to pick those things back up again when it was time to get back to work? Instead of answering immediately, I gave it another few days to pay attention to the picking back up ritual. I did the prayers 'in reverse,' giving thanks for things and responsibilities to be taken on.

It felt... refreshing. Orderly (which is a good thing in my world). I was able to be intentional and deliberate about starting off the day, and more ready to pick things up after allowing myself to put them down for the night.

Of course, I really like what I do for a living. In fact, I can't believe I get paid for this. I tried to put myself into the mental space of not liking my job at all, remembering the worst of my time as a consultant, but I have to imagine how the exercise would work if the things to be picked up were burdensome.

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Now, on to this week's chapter and exercise: the sabbath walk. Walk without purpose, he says. Pay attention. Notice things. Stop if you want to.

I think Meeegan is right; Muller lives near the beach, and is imagining somewhere beautiful and out-of doors to wander in, rather than an urban setting. Wandering aimlessly in downtown anywhere might be dangerous.

My beloved and I got to retreat to Camp Capers for a day over Christmas break, and we actually did Muller's exercise for this week without knowing it, even before I read the chapter. (God is good) We just strolled for a while, being outside, and then we strolled and talked, and then we strolled some more.

For me, the biggest benefit of the time spent was not necessarily the mindfulness of it, but instead this simple idea: go outside. I live in suburbia, and the church where I'm one of the priests meets in a building that's right off a freeway. We do have some of the wildness of West Texas right close to us, but you have to go looking for it.

The biblical narrative, which I use as one of the lenses through which I view my life, has a certain dirt-under-your-fingernails sensibility. The biblical writers, and original readers, tilled the soil and herded the sheep. They gathered in the grain, the wine, and the olive oil, and knew the smells and tastes and textures of each. Things that the original readers understood at a visceral level we have to stretch for.

We lose something when we lose contact with the land. I grew up a city boy, so I don't want to over-romanticize that. And it's not like I suddenly get in touch with some kind of innate pastoral wisdom when I go for a walk in the woods. But just to get outside for a while is refreshing for me.