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May 19, 2010

Our Restless Lives

by by Susan Arico

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I was recently flipping through a copy of Good Housekeeping and scanned the editor’s opening letter. She described being at an “improbable place: a women’s retreat” for part of a Saturday. “Ironically,” she wrote, “the topic was time—how to think about it, handle it, make peace with never having enough of it. And I discovered that it was… all but impossible for me to just sit still and listen—not take notes, not check my BlackBerry, not multitask in any way… Like most almost every woman I know, I live life in a terrific hurry, as if time is running out.”

Let’s see… Always being short on time; addiction to multi-tasking; feeling harried (and in great company being harried). Sounds all too familiar.

The biggest antidote that we have against the weight of the 24/7 life, I’ve been thinking, is the one command we 21st century Americans are most apt to break: keeping the Sabbath.

In Jesus’ day, the problem with the Sabbath was that people were overcommitted to keeping it. It had become legalistic and cumbersome, a burden to God’s people. It was so bureaucratic that the Pharisee regulators were thwarting God’ purposes—and Jesus rebuked them from getting between God and the refreshment he wanted them to enjoy.

Today most of us have the opposite problem. Far from over-keeping the Sabbath and getting caught up in legalisms related to inactivity, most of us simply ignore it. Day of rest? Really? You mean, every week?

My life—like many involved women who are gifted for leadership – is multi-faceted and sometimes downright complicated. I mother three kids under five, manage a household, consult a few hours a week, and help lead a women’s ministry at church. Activity is constant. Weekends let me catch up on all the stuff that didn’t get done during the week (often more productively because my husband can watch the kids so I can really crank it out). Maybe you can relate.

The editor’s inabililty to sit still resonates with me because this is the condition of the 21st century woman. Sitting means it’s time to check email. Walking means it’s time to pull out the iPod. Driving means it’s time to make a phone call. The kids’ nap means it’s time to get some work done. Watching TV means it’s time to fold laundry. Along with my whole generation, I’m losing the ability to be fully present—to attend fully to the moment at hand.

If Jesus walked the earth today, I have to think he’d have different words about the Sabbath—and about what we’ve allowed our lives to become. God has commanded us to rest—to build regular and intentional rest into our life. Not only do we refuse to do it, we’re unlearning the skill. We do the opposite of rest: we maintain continuous activity. The daily life of the modern women is becoming an Ode to the Restless Life.

It’s a radical thing, the fourth commandment. Taking one in seven days to unplug from the buzz and noise, to not work? Can God really want me to spend a full 15 percent of my week away from my to-do lists?

Radical and also wildly inconvenient, it takes a lot of planning and forethought to have a day without cooking, laundry, or business work. It frankly feels like a real nuisance and, ironically, a poor use of my time.

This attitude doesn’t surprise God, though. That’s why he uses the phrase “deny yourself” in relation to the Sabbath. God knows that discipline is tied to refreshment. Rest will not simply happen to us; we must actively build it into our lives.

And God, who is the author of time, also knows how it works. He knows that time will rule us if we don’t handle it His way. He knows that endless multi-tasking erodes our spirits and renders us spiritually weak. God knows the enemy uses modern time-saving devices as weapons against us, to wage slow war on our souls. He knows that if we prevail in training ourselves in perpetual distraction, we will lose ability not only to rest in him, but to hear from him.

That’s why the most radical thing I can do this weekend—and the most obedient—is nothing (productive). For a whole day. I can keep the day “holy unto the Lord.” With practice, maybe I can even become, through God’s grace, one of the few women out there who doesn’t, in the editor’s words, “live life in a terrific hurry.” Perhaps the legacy of this kind of life would honor God more than anything else I could ever do with my time.

Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on May 19, 2010 1:14 PM

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