Pastor’s Pen for April 2014 – Martha Myers

Dear People of Peace,

Thank you for the warm welcome that you have extended to me in my first month as your sabbatical preacher.  I am enjoying getting to meet you all and learn a bit about your neighborhood, your parish and its mission.  If I don’t call you by name, please keep telling me your name until I do.

I am looking forward to sharing Holy Week and Easter with you.  I am also looking forward to our study of Mary Ann McKibben Dana’s book, Sabbath in the Suburbs, that we will begin shortly after Easter. 

I have read enough to see that the “sabbath” she is talking about is not a return to the hated day that your grandparents or great-grandparents may have told about when certain (usually fun) activities were forbidden.  Rather, it is the Sabbath that is the good gift of God to the Hebrew people who had been forced to work seven days a week during their years in slavery in Egypt.  The “Sabbath” that she is advocating is a day to step away from achievement and productivity and make time for relationships, rest and fun.

Does that sound wonderful? I believe that it is, but in our 24/7 world  where everyone is so busy, staking out such a counter cultural practice is going to be a challenge. While the author is negotiating this challenge from the point of view of a pastor/mother with young children, my newly retired husband and I are facing the same challenge at a different point in life.  How do you get time off when you no longer have a day off? It is going to be an interesting exploration.

Pastor Martha

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