School to sabbath

Congratulations! If you live in Central Florida, you have just survived the first week of school! Whether you’re a student, a teacher or school staff, or you’re like me and just need to reconfigure your life around the school bus schedule, it has been a week. I like to get a temperature check on the congregation during our Wednesdays Unplugged service; and this week, the overwhelming sentiment was exhaustion. So if this is you, you are in good company. Even when we are not directly impacted by a large-scale change like an entire community returning to school, the indirect impact is still quite palpable. We are communal people, and as such, what is felt by our neighbor is also felt by us. Despite the mutual exhaustion, I hope you have found joy and excitement in this week when we get to celebrate first school photos; meet new teachers, colleagues, and friends; and begin to feel the shift into the Fall season (even if the weather isn’t quite there yet). 

This season has all the feels; and whenever there is a shift like this, it is important that we care for ourselves. I get it, you may be thinking I’m making much ado about nothing, but I’ll let you in on a little secret—when we are proactive about our self-care and attend to it during the tiny disruptions, it is that much easier to care for ourselves during the big disruptions.

Self-care, or Sabbath in “churchese,” was the first thing God hallowed at the beginning of creation. Everything else God made, God called “good” or “very good;” but when God proclaimed Sabbath on the 7th day, God “hallowed” it (Genesis 2:3, NRSVUE). Thus, self-care is a holy act. When we care for ourselves, we nurture and honor that which God created: our very being—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. 

Often we believe we don’t have time for self-care. Our lives are moving a million miles an hour, we have obligations and deadlines, and carving out just five minutes sounds like an impossibility. I get it. And I’ve learned that self-care doesn’t have to be a monumental task. It doesn’t need to be a multi-day vacation. In fact, when we focus on tiny acts of self-care throughout the day, that often has a greater impact than doing one big thing every once in a blue moon. I would argue that one of the most impactful self-care practices is simply shifting our focus in the here and now to that which is life-giving. In Philippians, Paul writes, 

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” 
~Philippians 4:8, NRSVUE

No matter what is going on in our lives, no matter how overwhelmed or exhausted we feel, no matter how bleak our outlook, there is always something that is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, or worthy of praise to which we can shift our focus, even for a moment. And in that moment we find gratitude, we find peace, and we find God. 

Last night, I made a salad, poured myself a glass of wine, and took myself out to eat on my back patio while the sun was setting. This meal was bookended by school work on one side and church work on the other, but this few minutes I took for myself to enjoy a healthy meal in the midst of beauty was a precious, necessary, and holy act of Sabbath. 

Enjoy moments of looking out your office or classroom window at the trees. Listen to a beautiful song while driving. Laugh while making dinner. Be present when you’re with loved ones. Practice gratitude. Find Sabbath. It is quite possibly the most important thing you will do for yourself today. 

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