One of my professors once told me a saying: “You can do seven days’ worth of work in six days, but you can’t do it in seven.” I was a freshman then, and at the time his words didn’t make much sense to me. How can you do more days’ work in less time? As efficient as that sounds, it also seems almost impossible. It wasn’t until last semester that I began to appreciate a different interpretation of this saying. This statement is mores about rest than it is about efficiency.
When I began working as an intern at Marsh Chapel with the other Marsh Associates, my supervisors encouraged us to take up a sabbath practice. The idea was to devote at least 24 hours of our week to something that we found restful. As simple as it sounds, this is surprisingly difficult to do. In the past, I’ve rarely been able to intentionally set aside a day to not do work. Classes, jobs, and extracurricular impose a significant demand on time and energy. A sabbath practice doesn’t seem to be an easy thing to add on in addition to everything else.
But I suppose that’s not the point of a sabbath practice. The intention is not to accomplish more, but to do less. If many of the regular activities and commitments that we do each day impose on our time and energy, then a sabbath practice is supposed to impose less on oneself. After taking five classes and dealing with some very stressful situations last semester, being more deliberate about this would certainly be helpful.
This semester, I’d like to try to take up something that I can call a sabbath practice. I don’t have a clear idea of what that will look like yet. Ideally, there would be a day in the week that I would set aside to devote to my physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Given how unpredictable a semester in college can be, that expectation may not be realistic. But at the very least, I can start with a practice that I usually do to help me feel centered and content. A nutritionist once told me that it is much easier to build a habit on an existing one than to start from scratch. Perhaps taking on a new practice will simply involve taking more time for something that I already enjoy outside of my regular activities. Or maybe it will involve exploring something new altogether. Who knows? But as we enter into a new month of a new year, I invite you to reflect upon the practices that make you feel rested and lightened. What practices make you feel restored, and more whole as a person? Whatever those practices may be, I encourage you to dedicate time to them, so that you may be fulfilled from and take heart in the regular rhythms of your life’s activity.