conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

sabbath: afternoon

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.
- Washington Irving

This entry in Wayne Muller's Sabbath is a continuation of what the reader's practice of the discipline might look like. When thinking of an afternoon break, Wayne reminds us of such pastimes as siesta (afternoon nap), or an afternoon walk or even a little music. Drums and flutes are about the breath and rhythm, the core of human music and human life. It's a scattershot chapter, but lovely anyway.

One of the other disciplines he reminds us of is monastic hours. Praying in the afternoon is part of the rhythm. Differing traditions play with the schedule a bit, but there it is. Monasticism. Prayer. Music. Take time to breathe. Take time to sing.

I woke up this morning thinking about the bombings, the crashing planes and crumbling buildings. People have been talking about moments of silence. Some people take today off from work or they leave work early. We find a way to mark the time. We try to remember the truth of what happened that day. Flags fly at half-staff.

The attacks happened the September I entered seminary. Some of us during that orientation period wondered if the attacks would have some kind of influence on how we came through the whole seminary process. And I am sure that they did. Maybe. What has had more of an impact on me has been the keeping of a rhythm of prayer at seminary. We prayed three times a day (some exceptions), morning prayer, noon eucharist, afternoon prayer. The jokes about a Baptist taking communion more times in three years than most Baptists take in a lifetime aside, this rhythm of prayer had a tremendous influence. It became the context of our work, our study and our fellowship. The same dynamic existed at Richmond Hill when I lived there. A rhythm of prayer can become the context in which we live, changing the way we engage the world.

What is compelling to me in Wayne's book, as I understand it, is that Sabbath can become the context in which we experience the world. The rhythms we create allow us to encounter the world differently. We sing. We walk. We call loved ones. We pray. We craft a context to interpret the world. This way we are proactive in how we encounter the world and not reactive, responding to all the various stimuli that come our way.

Sabbath practices can help us see differently. A refreshing afternoon nap can help us encounter the afternoon and our remaining work anew. The nap and the healthy space it creates becomes the context for our remaining work. The same is true of all the suggested disciplines in the chapter.

My prayer is that we can create spaces to encounter all our life, even the horrific destruction of 9-11-01. People try. We mark the time. We go to church or someplace to encounter the holy. As essential as the single moment is, however, it is not the same or perhaps as beneficial (hard to measure, I'll grant you) as a discipline of Sabbath. The tragedy becomes the context and our prayers the reaction without a discipline. This is not to say that we should not mark such occurrences, stopping everything to be silent for a moment. We should. What would it mean though, if by doing so we were not simply reacting to horrors but bringing them into the context of peace and holiness?

This is the question on my mind of late. What would it mean to bring the Towers, the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania, Afghanistan, Iraq and the hills of Pakistan into our Sabbath time, and lift them up in song, rest or prayer?

I wonder.

Megan's post is here.

Posted by tripp at September 11, 2007 03:45 PM