Hymn for the Sabbath

Where I discuss human limitations and the value of time

Time is a such a precious and finite thing; and it’s fascinating the way our own perspective of life can impact the way we value it. For example, I grew up regarding Sundays as sacred time; you went to church, spent time with family, you rarely ventured outside that format. And that’s fine; as a parent I really did appreciate the sabbatical from the weekly tasks, even if it meant not always getting a nap as kids tended to need constant supervision on a day without much structure. But church became unfulfilling over time; not feeling free to express beliefs and opinions made the weekly practice less of a “rest from every care”. But when you engage in an “eternal perspective” you don’t mind spending a lot of time doing things that make you uncomfortable and unhappy.

“Eternal perspective” is a phrase oft hurled at those who take issue with the corporate church. It’s often the fall back upon which the orthodox rely in order to justify why they may participate in an organization that profits from war stock investments, and a strong legal arm that protects it from liability and blame in fraud and abuse cases. They are willing to tolerate these facts so they can at least believe they will be with their families for eternity. But the eternal perspective doesn’t just make people turn away from blatant corruption and hypocrisy; it makes us devalue time itself.

When you have an eternal perspective, you are less likely to worry too much about the “things of the world”, i.e. conflicts, war, famine, abuse, fascism, greed, etc. because you deem them as symptoms of a fallen world ripe for destruction. But a focus on Eternity also distracts you from the exquisite miracle that life is on this Earth as well. When you are busy shoring up your riches in heaven, you devalue the riches already abounding at your door. It’s the Mormon concept of “eternity” that is silently making the bulk of our community sleep through their lives on Earth. What are we doing with our time here?

I know what I was doing; I was doing nothing. Outside of the weekly 2 hour church attendance, the monthly 2-hour temple attendance, the 1-hour weekly youth devotionals or 1-2 hour monthly female devotional, I was waiting, waiting, waiting. I was waiting for death. Because once you get those ordinances done for yourself, your only job until you die is “endure to the end”. It makes life feel pretty bleak when you attach the verb “endure” to it; not “enjoy”, not “celebrate”, not “explore”, just “endure”. That too impacted the way I was looking at time. Time was a container of grief because I believed this wasn’t really my home, just a classroom for a future eternity.

But when you lose your belief in an afterlife that rewards you for doing as you’re told in this life, you start to value the moments of your life in a different way. While not going into detail about my own ideas about what happens after death (that’s for a different day), my perspective on Jesus has also changed, and with it my perspective on the sacredness of time.

For me Jesus was a perfect model for how to exist in the world of human beings. He wasn’t a rich prince, a successful merchant, or an educated philosopher. Jesus was a poor day laborer who struggled against Roman occupation of his homeland. Jesus carved a path for people to exist in community in the face of oppression. The kingdom of God is in community among people caring for each other. With this new perspective in focus, suddenly an eternal perspective became a distraction.

The time that ticks by in this life is the container for the Kingdom of God. It is found in the beat of a butterfly’s wings, the breath of my love as he sleeps, the flutter of my daughter’s lashes as she plays in the garden. If the Kingdom of God is here, it is in the moments I play with my dog and each second he relishes. If the Kingdom of God is here, it is in the nighttime stories, the slow and quiet mornings, and the calm meals between my love and I. And when each moment becomes sacred and scarce, a Sabbath suddenly feels not enough, even trivial.

Life feels like a torrential river of time rushing past me and I try unsuccessfully to scoop up the moments with the overflowing cup of my heart. The torrent gets faster and faster until I sit alone with a cupful of only a few memories while all those others wash over, never to be retrieved again. All those precious moments of my children’s early years - gone, those exciting moments in college - gone, those blissful times in my first marriage - gone; I am left with a handful of vignettes to show for my life’s memories. My human mind fails me.

And the only salve I am left with is to relish every single moment. When I’m standing at the cash register, I notice the way the light hits the flowers, the smell of sausages from the demo station, and the smiles on my coworkers faces; they all create a brick of time that contains the Kingdom of God. When I am at home, trying to catch up on life’s essential tasks, I notice the glisten of my dog’s coat, the smell of fresh Chai in a pot, the song of a bird outside the window and remember this is another brick of time in the Kingdom of God. When I am communing with friends and loved ones, I try to be completely present with them; because this is how I build the Kingdom of God.

Sundays have become a more sacred day to me than they ever were when I attended church; this is because Sundays, along with every other day, have become more scarce and more sacred. And while I have worked plenty of Sundays, enjoying Sunday pay while navigating the heaviest shopping day of the week in my area, I still relish those moments with my coworkers, and sharing a smile and a brief conversation with a stranger while they buy their essentials for the week. Because for me, nothing is more valuable than looking in the eyes of another human being and you both feel seen. This is the Kingdom of God - living in community, living with humans in peace, seeing the Divine in each pair of eyes and every face you see.

While I watch time tick away, I remember to add value to each moment thru connection; connection with my loved ones and my friends, but connection also with my community, my country, my world. Each of these is precious and miraculous in its very existence. To not notice would be a waste of the precious resource of time we have. Time is sacred because it is scarce. Time is sacred because it’s what we have to measure the richness of our lives. Time is sacred because it is how we build the Kingdom of God on Earth; brick by brick of ticking time. The faces of our family, friends and neighbors is view of the Divine. And you worship the Divine best in a Sabbath of sacred time.