I'm really weary of winter and cold and ice and shoveling or as the Iowans call - "scooping snow" Doesn't scooping sound much more fun than shoveling? Yea well it's not.
Ah but the snow days. When all the roads are closed. The children stay home. You can't leave the house. So you make a fire and make some soup or cookies. I really feel sorry for people who never get snow days. Snow days are really all we have left of a Sabbath in this society.
Snow days are Sabbath for me. No guilt about some place I should be because I can't be anywhere else. Yes I will work on confirmation or a sermon or a bible study on a snow day. Or I'll clean house. But it's still restful and peaceful because no one expects me to be anywhere but where I am.
The difference is that Sabbath doesn't just give you permission to stay home and rest. It commands that you stay home and rest. Sabbath isn't just about "going to church". It's about rest. It's about God loving us so much that he commands us to rest because he knows if we don't have that excuse we will adhere to the command the world makes on us to go here, go there, buy this, do this, take your kids there. At least when the roads are covered with ice and snow we cannot obey those commands.
As someone who could never be mistaken for a workaholic, I heartily appreciate a love that commands rest. But what's up with Exodus 31:11? You better rest...or else!?
ReplyDeleteSometimes you have to get harsh to get people's attention.
ReplyDeletePeriodically I vow to actually observe this commandment and do so for a while, then I don't. My interior and exterior life starts becoming very messy until I remember the value of keeping the Sabbath. And then I vow to actually observe this commandment and do so for a while, then I don't. Being human can be so ridiculous and unnecessarily painful.
ReplyDeleteI have memories of snow days as you describe them. but here in the city sadly, we cannot rest quite as much. (sigh).
ReplyDeleteThat enforced sabbath concept triggered memories of the unexpected snow days of my childhood in Milwaukee. If we had enough snow to cancel school, it would be heavy, wet snow.
ReplyDeleteSometimes a power outage is something like a sabbath. I can't use the computer, the oven, the vacuum cleaner, the water supply (we have a pump), and I can only do reading and hand sewing, no ironing. It takes a rethinking of what to do with my time.
Official school snow days are a treasured memory from childhood. They made adults anxious, because we were only allowed a certain number of them per year. if we exceeded it, the school year had to run longer, and it apparently cost a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteBut to kids, they were clear evidence of divine grace.