Jonathan and I are dismantling his father’s household. Dad’s home now is a small private room in the medical wing of a retirement community. There is no room there for the furnishings of a lifetime. So, we have spent this last week lifting and sorting and saving and throwing away, gathering furniture and memorabilia into piles organized by destination, preparing to send in several directions what once was a coherent whole.
Not a conducive setting for reflecting on Sabbath, one might think. But, in Hebrew, Shabbat means stop. And we have been stopped again and again during this emotionally and physically challenging process by a photo, or a note saved in a dresser drawer, or a small item of daily life, long-forgotten and emanating memories.
I’m learning that Sabbath can be experienced as discrete moments of deep rest in the midst of activity. Each Sabbath segment is made of love, in love. And they are connected by this common substance into a larger fabric of Holy Stillness that is
the real warp and woof of our lives and of our selves.
~ Deborah Hutchison
