Sabbath
Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives
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4.3 • 8 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestselling author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live? shows us how to heal our harried lives by creating a special time of rest, delight, and renewal.
“In Sabbath, Wayne Muller gives us the license, the encouragement to take that single mindful breath which puts our busy lives in perspective and helps restore our souls.”—Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
It has become our standard greeting: “I’m so busy.” Our relentless emphasis on success and productivity has become a form of violence, Wayne Muller says. We have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between effort and rest, doing and not doing. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance, longing for time with friends and family, longing for a moment to ourselves.
Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. This consecrated time, Muller affirms, is available to all of us, regardless of our spiritual tradition. We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a sabbath afternoon, a sabbath hour, a sabbath walk. Sabbath time is off the wheel, time when we take our hand from the plow and allow the essential goodness of creation to nourish our souls.
With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Taking the Jewish Sabbath tradition as his starting point, Muller (How, Then, Shall We Live?) uncovers the basic pattern of all living things to follow a rhythm of exertion and rest. Human beings are not exempt from the physical need for rest, and it is the author's contention that we have a deep spiritual need to regularly experience joy and to rest from our labors. Although he explicates from the Sabbath, Muller, an ordained minister, is not Jewish; he is merely appreciative of the Jewish tradition. In treating his subject, he touches on the ways in which many faiths--including Christianity, Islam and Buddhism--also encourage a rhythm of work and rest. Muller does not limit Sabbath practice to a seven-day pattern but encourages his readers to create their own uniquely suitable Sabbath practices--daily, weekly or according to some other pattern. Each chapter ends with a couple of brief tales that exemplify an aspect of sacred rest, followed by practical suggestions for integrating a Sabbath spirit into daily life. Muller's insights are applicable within a broad spectrum of faiths and will appeal to a wide range of readers, from the eclectically spiritual to those practicing Judaism or professing Christianity.
