Defining Sabbath
Posted by Rev. Bret on 06 Aug 2007 at 12:52 pm | Tagged as: blog
Yesterday was my first day at church, and so today is my first sabbath that I take each Monday. It is sacred time for me to come down from Sunday’s full day, to reflect on the coming week and sermon, and to spend an entire day without a schedule.
There are many ways to differentiate a sabbath from other days. Mine is “a day without a schedule.” I get out and do things, but each activity doesn’t begin or end at any specific time. It begins when it begins; it ends when it ends. For someone like me who schedules every activity morning until night, this is a liberating way of being for a day.
There are other goals for my sabbath. I read, do my spiritual practice, and have some kind of outing that will be refreshing in some way. Take today for example.
I got out on the bike before it got too hot and took the mission trail south. I’ve been on the trail that goes to the five San Antonio missions before, but I hadn’t yet done the whole trail, from downtown with the Alamo to Mission Espada — about 25 miles round trip. It’s a short bike ride but I’m still getting used to the Texas heat!
It was a great ride. I loaded a Learning Company recording on my Treo (a lecture on the Epic of Gilgamesh and its relationship to Hebrew scriptures) and headed past Mission Conception to mission San Juan, which is a full compound with all its outer walls intact, a beautiful sanctuary where Mass is still held each Sunday, and some spectacular open spaces. I’ll write about it more when I bring my good camera and have some pictures too. (I took the picture of Espada above, not San Juan, with my Treo.)
On the way back (just to make it a perfect ride), I stopped at a small airport near the trail, picked up a local map (to use with my flight simulator), and ate a perfectly adequate hamburger at the airfield’s cafe.
It was a good start to my sabbath. The rest of the day will be spent with a book.
A) I long for such a thing.
B) You took a bike ride, ate a hamburge, and came back home? (Seems something is missing here– some part of the story I’m used to but not hearing in this tale.)
C) I read some comic books today, does that count?
[...] Bret Lortie’s post “Defining Sabbath” explains how he takes an unstructured day of recreation each Monday: There are many ways to [...]
Love the photo of the church building… looks like a face with their tongue sticking out giving a bronx cheer also known as a rasberry.