sabbath: the realm of being not having

Today is one in which I rest and revel in each moment: quiet morning tea in the autumn sunshine followed by browsing the stacks of the library, and simple yard work. After a full week of sorting, packing-up and relinquishing books; entering into the hearings of Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh as part prayer, lament and analysis; and traveling two hours each way to play a gentle harvest festival at a farmers market gig in Connecticut: everything within me is aching for Sabbath. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it like this in a small volume called Sabbath:

To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern... The Sabbath is entirely independent of the month and unrelated to the moon.11 Its date is not determined by any event in nature, such as the new moon, but by the act of creation. Thus the essence of the Sabbath is completely detached from the world of space. The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

Elsewhere he observed that if we can learn to rest and trust God for 24 hours perhaps we can learn to trust the Creator to care for creation during the remainder of the week. That is tough going, but essential. I am such a novice.