A few days into the beginning of my sabbatical, I read these words when praying the Psalms: ‘so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom’ (Psalm 90.12). Receiving the gift of 3 ½ months to rest from pastoral work, I read this petition in the psalms with a specific purpose: I need God’s wisdom to guide these days of rest, not my own.
In several ways, a sabbatical is like other spiritual retreats. When one has the gift of retreating to a quiet place for a week or a weekend, temptation often arises—to impose one’s agenda for the time away. Weary from responsibilities and constant activity, it’s all too easy to bring a scarcity mindset into a retreat; to stockpile spiritual experiences and store them in the silo of one’s memory after one returns home. Bringing an agenda, a spiritual to-do list for retreat time, is another way of saying, I know what I need and I want to be in control of these days. Where’s the self-denial in that attitude? To improvise an aphorism of Jesus: whoever would save his retreat will lose it, but whoever loses his retreat for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16.25)
Such has been my prayer for these sabbatical days. Better to renounce my wisdom, and surrender my needs to the all-wise God. My calendar must always be an altar of sorts. What I see is partial. “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 55.8).
Rest that Doesn’t Restore
Our culture extols the wisdom of self-care, yet we often don’t question whether this cultural wisdom resembles true, sabbath rest and the scriptural wisdom in the Gospels. Jesus said, ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.’ In the kingdom of God, the Lord brings joy and rest when we pursue eternal things. Temporal things like good food, memorable trips or experiences, enjoying hobbies—these cannot restore the soul with its deepest needs. They are good things in moderation, but they are additives to the soul, not its food. Pursuing our own pleasure cannot feed the deepest hungers of the heart.
Remember what Israel’s sabbath transgression was in Isaiah 58: ‘doing your pleasure on my holy day.’1 This is the pseudo-rest that doesn’t restore us to the Holy One, to our neighbor, or even our own souls.
Pursuing our own wants to restore our soul is like a body that subsists on light sleep alone. Sleep scientists tell us that we have three stages of sleep: light sleep, deep sleep, and REM. Deep sleep and REM are the stages of sleep when body and mind experience both restoration and growth. If someone experiences numerous nights with the majority of hours in light sleep, it will have a detrimental effect on cognitive functioning, the immune system, and emotional health.
To receive the rest that restores, one must seek eternity in time; to fix one’s gaze on the Holy One and eternal things. Deep concentration on eternal things brings the greatest restoration to body, mind, and soul. This is the habit, the skill, the wisdom we are called to acquire in Christ.
In tandem with this prayer for wisdom from Psalm 90, I’ve thought much of Mary of Bethany in these sabbatical days. She is an icon in Scripture (Luke 10.38-42) of attaching herself to the Holy One amid the cares of this life. Mary experiences the rest that restores because she chooses the presence of Jesus.
The Energies of Grace
When God created the heavens and the earth, he instituted the sabbath on the seventh day. Abraham Heschel said of the sabbath:
The Sabbath is a reminder of the two worlds—this world and the world to come; it is an example of both worlds. For the Sabbath is joy, holiness, and rest; joy is part of this world; holiness and rest are something of the world to come.2
The Sabbath was not only a Day but became a Man—the Son of Man. Eternity has broken into time through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2.28). After Christ’s ascension and Pentecost, the restoring, healing graces of the Kingdom have been given to the Church. Attachment to Christ—his presence, his Word, his sacraments—restores the weary soul.
The sound of a soul who finds Christ to be All in All for his weary soul….
Sleep makes me weary, but You give me rest. There is no rest for one who is weary unless he looks at You, nor is there any sweetness for one embittered unless he converses with You, nor is there any health for one who is sick unless he touches Your hand, nor is there any purification for one who is impure unless he bathes in Your light. 3
Western Christians speak about sacraments and the multitude mercies and gifts of God as means of grace. Among Eastern Christians, primarily because of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas, the gifts of God are spoken about as divine energies. This is similar to the writer of Hebrews’ reflection about rest and the Word of God:
“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active (Gk. energeia), sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:8–12, ESV)
St. Gregory’s theology of divine energies is expansive, but the key insight I find regarding sabbath rest is that the manifold graces of God energizethe saints—they bring true restoration. Scripture, lectio divina, sacraments, sung worship, contemplative prayer—these gifts pulse with life and energy to revive weary souls. Like a vine delivers sap to its branches and then to the fruit, so does the grace of God energize and bear good fruit in his saints.
The energies of God do not produce spiritual zaps or sensations to ‘recharge our batteries.’ We are not machines that need recharging. We are embodied souls, with eternity in our hearts, and a spirit made for communion with the eternal God. Some encounters will be more energizing than others. Some days we will feel restored, others not as much. Wisdom does not measure things by sensations or singular moments, but by numbering our days, our years. ‘Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.’
The Two Ways of Finding Rest
In biblical teaching, there is the fundamental outlook known as the Two Ways: there is a way that leads to life and a way that leads to death.
Improvising on that Two Ways tradition, I’ve compiled two lists, incomplete though they be—things that weary the soul and things that restore the soul.
I intentionally titled this post ‘Seeking the Wisdom of Rest’ because I remain a student, an apprentice, of this skill. So my list is necessarily incomplete.
Things that Weary the Soul—An Incomplete List
- Rejecting the will of God
- Noise: external and internal
- Haste
- Screens & inboxes
- Martha’s strife: making second things into first things; irritability toward first things (Luke 10.38-42)
- Self care without worship of God
- Living in one’s head
- Fear of the future
- Placing one’s hope on temporal things
- Relying on one’s strengths, talent, or grit to save
Things that Restore the Soul—An Incomplete List
God’s Holiest Energies of Grace
- The Eucharist: consuming the Body and Blood of Christ
- The Prayer of the Heart
- The Sacrament of the Present Moment
- New Light or Insight on the Word of God
- New Love for the Word of God
- True repentance; the ‘bright sadness’ of confession
- Holy Images
- Singing in worship
- Spiritual friendship
- Quiet: external and internal
Natural Contemplation, or Reading the Book of Creation
- Natural Light
- Walking
- Rivers & streams
- Gardens
- Forests
- Songbirds
Attitudes
- Gratitude
- Limits and Self-Control
- ‘Practicing Resurrection’ (Emily Dickinson)
- Practicing Eternity
The Hunger for Beauty
During these sabbatical days, I chose to focus on a theology of beauty, which will be the subject of my next post. But the topic relates to the subject of spiritual rest, too. We all hunger for beauty that will last. Our longing for rest is another way of saying we are hungry for eternal beauty. Trying to making temporal things into eternal things never works. They become something different—idols that deplete our souls rather than bringing joy.
Wisdom, however, recognizes the hunger for beauty, and prays for humility. ‘Teach me.’ Lead me in the way I should go. There is only One who satisfies:
“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4, ESV)
