05 20 12 Sabbath as a Faith Stance



When it comes to raising one’s own food there are certain times of the year that require more time and effort than others.  This is especially true in Alaska, because our winters are so long, and winter restricts so much outdoor activity.  So, springtime and early summer are busy times at our bioshelter home—and May is extra-busy.



One of our goals in the bioshelter has been to try-out strategies to become more self-sufficient and less a part of the consumer culture.  Recently, this has meant focusing on how to produce more of our food, either through hunting and fishing or through small-scale gardening.  Now is the gardening season, so we are at it.


The big task this week has been filling the garden boxes on our garage roof-deck.  This has been a bigger project than some might think, since it began last year with the harvesting of our own cottonwood trees, then continued by eventually finding a friend to mill the trees into lumber, then discovering a garden-safe method for preserving the wood, and then building the boxes.  All of that took time, so yesterday was our first opportunity to actually get the dirt in them.


Even putting dirt in the boxes was a rather daunting project.  Our bioshelter home is built into a mountain—which is great for indoor temperature control, but makes almost everything else a real pain.  I had to haul the dirt across a patch of bare ground and down two flights of stairs.  I had to figure a way to build two ramps for the cart which, happily, I could build out of lumber that will be reused in other projects.  


So yesterday was the big day, the day for getting dirt into the boxes, because next weekend, Memorial Day weekend in the USA, is the traditional planting weekend for Alaskans.  We had to work this week to be ready for next week.


Now that this week’s task is done, I have a bit of time to reflect.  Here are a few thoughts from the perspective of this blog on faith and bioshelter life.


One of the ongoing topics for reflections that has come with living in a bioshelter[1] has been on the nature of Sabbath.  The biblical teaching on the proper rhythms of life calls for us to live in healthy rhythms.  One beautifully poetic description of this view of life is found in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.


Although on the surface this might appear as nothing more than a practical philosophy of life, I have found it to also be more than a bit of a challenge.  To discover that there are moments when one must engage in the battles of life, and to ask how one wages such battles in ways that reduce woundedness and distrust of the world (that is, how does one engage in war counter-culturally) has turned out to be both mentally and spiritually stretching.  Quite frankly although there have been moments when I and my comrades have succeeded at this, there have also been times when I/we have failed.  Both succeeding and failing have been opportunities to learn and grow, and the learnings from both have flowed out of this understanding that there are rhythms to life: according to Ecclesiastes there are times to celebrate successes and times to mourn losses, but both are a part of living in God’s Sabbath rhythm of life.


The Sabbath rhythm is mostly about entering into God’s rest.  Genesis 2:2 states that “on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.”  That is, the Sabbath is the pinnacle of creation—it is the point of the created order.  The Sabbath life is a life dedicated to the simple enjoyment of being in relationship with God and with our fellow creatures.  This is what is meant by the biblical sense of entering into God’s rest (Hebrews 4).  


This rest necessarily includes public worship, because worship is about intentionally recognizing that living in relationship with God comes first, and because any true life with God is not just solo and interior, but is also social.  Social/collaborative awareness requires activities that are designed to bonds with God AND with one another as a part of our collaborative relationship with God.


However, Sabbath is not just about formal worship.  It is about recognizing that our work must contribute to right relationships.  Right relationships are the point.  


Sabbath is about being at rest in one’s soul, because our work, and even our struggles, contribute to the whole.  Indeed, the formal Sabbath—ritually setting apart time for worship and enjoyment of relationships—is only a part of the Sabbath.  The Sabbath is about being at rest in one’s soul, and is something we carry with us all the time.  Whether we are building, or tearing down; whether we are weeping or dancing, whether we are planting or plucking up, whether we engaged in battle or at peace, the Sabbath is the sense of “being at rest in one’s soul.”  The Sabbath is the point.


For Christians this has been a huge window in understanding life.  So many feel that they are unable to be connected to God or to meaningful faith communities.  Jesus, the Christ, insists that none should be left out or cut off, and any who have cut themselves off need to be restored, both to God and to faith communities.  Christ insists that restoration is possible, no matter how bleak it all looks.  Indeed, the Christian perspective teaches that restoration is possible because in Christ, God was at work to open the gates and allow the restoration of the entire cosmos—including each human being. That is the message of the ministry of Jesus Christ, including his death and resurrection.


In fact, there is both a social view—that we need to be restored to one another—and a personal view—that I need to be at rest with God and others in my soul.  I have therefore been trying to nurture this view of Sabbath and hope within myself as we have been preparing for planting at the bioshelter.  


Nurturing a Sabbath view is an ongoing stance a person of faith must take—and taking a stance requires both reflection and action.  In my case I know that I am called to be energetic in my work for the church.  This “official” job both pays the bills, and contributes to the work of faith communities across Alaska.  As a part of my reflection, I know that my paid job is important because it is helping the message of Sabbath hope to take form in the world.  



The life-experiment that Cindee and I chose to add to our paid work by living in a bioshelter is a great adventure, but is also another calling that requires great energy.  So here is the rub: now is the time to do our paid work—and it is a time to do the work of planting.  Both must happen at once.  


This week I must therefore admit that holding onto the sense of Sabbath—of being at rest in my soul—is sometimes an effort.  This week I have felt like I was holding down two jobs—the sustainable living work that required ramps to be built and dirt to be hauled this week, and the ongoing “day job” of encouraging pastors and faith communities in their work.  


But that is the nature of Sabbath life.  There are times that are more taxing, and we know such times are coming.  We prepare as best we can for such times, and in general we do pretty well.  But we must know that a time is needed to balance out such intensity.  There is a time for extra-hard work, and a time for extra rest of the soul.  With this awareness, there is a rightness to it, if we will find it…this Sabbath of the soul.


[1] One of my growing beliefs is that living on this planet, as a part of its ecosystem, is the very same as living in a bioshelter.  The difference is that too many people can be rather unaware of what they must do to be good citizens of bioshelter earth.

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