Living Sabbaths

The Old Testament recorded the Fourth Commandment begins; "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the lord thy God" (Exodus 20) Whatever your religious or non-religious orientation , the instruction to keep one day, the seventh, a week "holy"  is worth contemplating. With the Sabbath, we learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year. These sanctuaries exist in time, not place. rather than building physical monuments, the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals. The regular sanctification of a period of time is a core spiritual challenge. Not a mere "interlude" in the week, the Sabbath is, rather, considered "the climax of living." The Sabbath can be liken to "a palace in time, a dimension in which the human is at home with the divine . . . a window in eternity. What more worthy challenge than to create a sanctified period each week where time as measured in the workaday would ceases and life is infused with the sacred?

  The Sabbath also reminds human beings of the need to rest. "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed" (Exodus 31;17). Emphasis on the "rest and refresh" dimension of the Sabbath : In our human bodies, the heart perceptibly rests after each life-giving beat; the human lungs rest between the exhale and the inhale. We have lost this essential  rhythm . . .Because we do not rest, we lose our way . . .  we bypass the nourishment that would give us succor. we miss the quiet that would give us wisdom. We miss the joy and love born of effortless delight. the Sabbath's rest is not merely to refresh yourself for the next round of labour. It is to observe the Sabbath is to celebrate the coronation of a day in the spiritual wonderland of time. With the Sabbath, emotions of joy and delight are evoked as gateways into the heavenly realm.

WORK:

Work?
Yes, WORK:

The labour we take on or decline, the work we enjoy or endure reveal so much about ourselves, spirit.

Strategic probing the work culture of any community has always been synonymous with economic success.

Work convey the ceaseless and intense striving for higher quality (it it exist) that marks one's work life.

Work to live creates momentum through a cumulative sequence of activities - the scores of aces in front of computer screens, the presence of express couriers, the lighted cabs on drizzly days, commuters dashing aimless, it seems, the ubiquitous cell phones and more credit cards, credit cards installment purchases, credit crunches.

One's personality and sensitivity to the little ironies emerging from the iconography of the city, and wild jungles too is evident.

The concrete jungle workers are just a type of the organism in the natural rain forest.

The square motif of computer/laptop screens echoes the spaces of office cubicles and the geometry of city architecture. Cash changes hands side-by-side with credit card transactions; different courier services network the island - bent on locking up that precious niche they call their own.

All of which points to the enormity and multi-layered texture of a country's urban and rural life, where a mind-boggling spectrum of work takes place, and the boundaries between white and blue collar workers become increasingly meaningless.

Nevertheless work with love is the meaning of living. And healthy living too. Poised somewhere in the scope of that larger unfolding plot.

All work, when we honestly admit, only point to the archingly resonant cycle of forming relationships and families. Only human can work, others follow.