A New Heart w/ Carol Bayliss

Speaking of Sabbath and how to properly celebrate - it seemed like the perfect time for Carol Bayliss to share.  If you don't know her, Carol is a long-time Westside gal.  She's stylish, spunky and surprising.  She loves travel, great food, theater - and her better half.  Carol's climbed many mountains in her time, but the most recent was a spiritual Everest.  It began with some health complications, and long story short, Carol found herself at UCLA waiting for a new heart.  And she waited, and waited and waited.

For 6 months she lived on the fourth floor, waiting for the heart that would save her life.

Sabbaths came and went.  As a church, we celebrated Sabbath without her present, but certainly she was heavy on our minds.  We visited her on Sabbath.  We prayed as a congregation for her heart, but mostly for her soul.  We learned new songs while she was gone, and I often thought of her returning and finding so much changed, so much new.  While she was gone, Oceans became one of our favorites.  Little did we know it was becoming one of hers as well.

Make Good

Did you stuff all the good you could into yesterday?  Did you drink up a day filled with the best of the best?  Maybe it was a small step in the right direction - a cup of coffee in the morning light, a snuggle with your littlest one that you truly savored, a drive to church with delight at all the awaited you there.

Last week I asked the question "What do we DO on the Sabbath" and wrote about the Genesis answer: enjoy the good.  Today let's dive into the Gospel answer: make good.

The Best of The Best

We've been talking about what Sabbath isn't.
It's not a day of nothing. It's not a day of relaxing in an any-old-way-we-want fashion.  Nor is it a day to catch up on what didn't get done during the week.  Rather,  Sabbath is the day when we're invited to enjoy the pleasures of the Kingdom in all their fullness, even while waiting for God's kingdom to fully come.  It's experiencing the joy of full creation, the rest of completeness in Christ.

Last week I suggested a few ways to make room for Sabbath.  How did it go? What did you try?

I failed to prep a meal,  but we did use paper plates. My DH was perplexed. "It's Sabbath," I said.
"Yeah?" He didn't get it.
"I'm trying to avoid some of the work I normally do,  so I can enjoy Sabbath."
"Oh...well its just two plates..."
"Yeah..."
"Not much of a difference."
"You know, if we were Orthodox, I wouldn't be able to make meals on the Sabbath."
"Hmmm," he said,  eyeing his homemade not-what-he-wanted tuna wrap. "Could you heat things up?"
"I don't know."
"So we'd have to eat out," DH concludes, suddenly a cheerleader of my Sabbath observance.

Making Room

Last week we explored the idea of Sabbath.  In summary, it's God-ordained rest from the world to live a whole day in God's kingdom here in preparation for our eternity.

Often we think of Sabbath as a day of relaxing.  Naps, movies, walks, etc.

I'm not saying you shouldn't relax on the Sabbath, but just "resting" begs the question - Resting from what?

Sabbath: Enter Rest

Spiritual disciplines can be difficult to put into play in a busy life.  The most difficult ones for me involve resting.  Can anyone else relate?

Do you live in workout clothes because it's easier to sprint from one demand to the next in spandex?  Does your weekly meal plan include a run through Del Taco because it is impossible to carve out 30 minutes to make dinner?  (Can anyone actually make dinner in 30?  If so - call me!)  Are your next 5 weekends already booked?  

Sabbath rest is hard.  In his book "Unity of the Bible," Fuller discusses the odd chapter and divisions in the Bible.  Genesis 1 ends after the 6th day of creation, as if the creation of man is the climax of the story.  Certainly we would like to think of it that way.  However, he argues, a better chapter division would be after Genesis 2:3:

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Where did the swimsuits go?

September is almost here.  Did you hear me?  September is almost here!  Agh!!!!!  Not ready.  Not nearly ready.  Our summer was a mix of quick-unpack-now-repack interrupted by change-the-sheets-the-company-is-here pandaemonium.  The cabinet door that broke in June is still broken.  The laundry pile is belly-button high.  My nightstand is littered with quarters, stray buttons, clothes that need mending, single earrings and half-finished crafts (you know, the kind you start because you think you have a free day and then you remember you have to go to the dmv, so you hunt down your sleeping bag because who knows how long that's going to take).

I'm not ready.  I have not made a new life schedule.  I haven't even started my summer reading list because I'm still reading the book I started in March.  Yes, March.  I haven't made a menu plan.  Mail is piled up on my desk.  Lucy still thinks her nose is inside her ear because we didn't study biology this summer, and pinterest is already displaying Thanksgiving crafts (can we all just agree not to pin those yet?!).  My ideal life is not in place yet!  September cannot come - and yet, it will.