This chapter was a bit scattered for me, and I had to read it several times over before it made sense at all. I ended up understanding it best as a part of a longer section of thought entitled "wisdom."
It seems to me that Muller is trying to explore what the Sabbath teaches us about wisdom from several angles, but instead of accomplishing that he ends up saying the same thing in five different ways. My summary of the section: you're not in control. You don't know what's going to happen in the future.
He tells a few stories in this chapter, some legendary, some real-life anecdotes, about people who struggle for control of their lives, and are swept away by unforeseen and uncontrollable forces. This whole section is steeped in eastern thought; he quotes the Tao Te Ching and references the Buddhas several times.
I struggled with this chapter as I did with the others in the section. After five chapters of the same argument, the same things are true: Wayne seems to think that things will solve themselves if you leave them alone, and I don't. There's a difference between allowing yourself a break from working and worrying at something and deciding that it's going to fix itself.
also, if you go down the track of "we don't know what's going to happen in the future and we can't control it," you eventually stop at a station called "why should I work at anything at all?" Here I will admit that I'm not well schooled in Eastern philosophy, so maybe I'm being too critical. Maybe my friend Brendan over at Off the Beaten Path can help me understand where Wayne is trying to go.
When Muller says that each Sabbath is an opportunity for a new beginning, my response is to think that he's missing his own point. If you're not in control of events, then what's the use of new beginnings?
Wayne's suggested exercise for this chapter is "sabbath bathing." Wash as if you're taking a ritual bath, cleansing all your parts and starting anew. If I could disconnect it from the chapter, I might feel better about it. I like the idea, even if I had to clean the tub before I could do the exercise.
2 comments:
Hey.
The Greek "apathia" is what you are after. It gets translated into "apathy" in English, but it ain't the same. A good trandlation would be "disentanglement." It is similar to the Eastern practice. But it was upheld by the church fathers and mothers.
"Accidie" is the vice...cynicism, bitterness, disengagement, uncaring...
"if you go down the track of 'we don't know what's going to happen in the future and we can't control it,' you eventually stop at a station called 'why should I work at anything at all?'"
But the train doesn't stop at that station (unless you want it to). It keeps going to the place where this is posted on the wall:
"Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you . . . your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."
The cycle is in three stages: the dutiful, the nihilist, the child. The child is non-resistant, non-striving, perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. But letting myself go down the track of uncertainty to get there is, literally, an inordinately frightening proposition.
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