My wife recently got very excited about a book she was reading and asked that I read it as soon as possible.  What a gift!  It was one of the most meaningful and useful things that I have read in a long time.  The book is by Wayne Muller and the title is Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives (New York: Bantam Books, 1999).  I wish I could make this book required reading for everyone I know – we would all be better for having read and taking Muller’s advice to heart – making it a part of our daily living.

Here are some excerpts from the opening section:

In the relentless busyness of modern life, we have lost the rhythm between work and rest.

All life requires a rhythm of rest . . . we have lost this essential rhythm . . . and for want of rest, our lives are in danger.

In our drive for success we are seduced by the promises of more: more money, more recognition, more satisfaction, more love, more information, more influence, more possessions, more security.  Even when our intentions are noble and our efforts sincere – even when we dedicate our lives to the service of other – the corrosive pressure of frantic overactivity can nontheless cause suffering in ourselves and others.

Without the essential nutrients of rest, wisdom, and delight embedded in the problem-solving process itself, the solution we patch together is likely to be an obstacle to genuine relief.  Born of desperation, it often contains enough fundamental inaccurary to guarantee an equally perplexing problem will emerge as soon as it is put into place.  In the soil of the quick fix is the seed of a new problem, becauase our quiet wisdom is unavailable.

We have forgotten the Sabbath . . . Sabbath time – effortless, nourishing rest – can invite a healing . . . without rest, we respond from a survival mode, where everything we meet assumes a terrifying prominence . . . so, when we are movning faster and faster, every encounter, every detail inflates in importance, everything seems more urgent than it really is, and we react with sloppy desperation.

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy.” (1-7)

Amen and Amen!