Sabbath 11

This week's chapter is called "Let It Be." (And yes, I'm hearing the Beatles inside my head right now... aren't you?)

"Let It Be" is actually one of my favorite Beatles songs, more for the yearning hymn-like melody than for the words, which I don't actually know. Perhaps I should go look them up and see whether they stand up to the tune for me... but on the other hand, I don't really want to know. Finding out that the words aren't great would detract from the song's overall appeal. I think I'll... let it be.

In this chapter, Muller makes a potent argument against the error of putting off rest until one is finished with one's work. First he notes that the Jewish Sabbath is set to begin at sunset. The sunset happens at widely different times of day as the year goes on -- I was especially aware of this during the summers I spent at northern latitudes in Ireland, and the winters I spent at northern latitudes in Minnesota. There's nothing quite like looking out your office window at 4 p.m. and seeing dusk light to point out that this is one time of year... then watching the sun go down at 10:30 p.m. six months later.

But Muller's point is that the Jewish Sabbath doesn't begin "when you're finished with your work on Friday." It doesn't even begin at the end of the *business* day, necessarily. It begins when the sun goes down -- and the timing of sundown doesn't have anything to do with "when we're finished."

He uses this practice as the thin edge of a wedge he then begins to drive in, to try to lever his reader away from the habit of postponing rest until one is finished with one's work. I think of the hundreds of unread plays waiting on my shelves, the essays yet to be written (and deadlines approaching), the research to be done for my next two productions, let alone any gesture I might make towards building freelance opportunities (because yeah, I need more work in my life...) -- it's hard to imagine being Finished with my work, in any permanent sense.

That is actually part of Muller's point, too -- that Finished is an illusion. He sees individual human lives as collections of tiny cycles inside the much larger cycles of families, societies, and even the ecological life of the planet.

I'm not so much in tune with him on that score, but I do concur that putting off rest until one is Finished is a futile effort. I aim to find a balance between finishing actual tasks before I rest -- I won't usually leave my office with a play only partially read, for example -- and resting in good time, leaving the next part of my work for the following day.

As I've been thinking about my responses to the past few chapters, I have felt like I've been too critical of Muller. Critical thinking skills are tools, and like any tools, they can be used for good or ill ends. While I do take some pride in my tools and keep them sharp, I do want to use my powers for good. So, I'm trying to cut Muller more of a break when he fails to read my mind (Really! What's the matter with him?) and take a larger view of what he's writing about. He doesn't have to get it perfectly right, in order to have something worthy to share.

One thing I noticed in this chapter was that as I read, my brain kept saying, "Spoken like a man who works for himself, Wayne." Much of my past and present struggle with rest has had to do with fear of losing a job. Muller doesn't seem to share that worry, so I perceive him as a person who doesn't have to answer to anyone for how much work he accomplishes. It's useful to me to notice how much fear about employment and money affects my decisions -- not just about rest, but about everything. Having gone through the biggest financial scare of my life in the past couple of years, I expect I may feel the reverberations of that fear for some time to come, but I'll feel them less and react to them less if I remain aware of the fear and keep it in realistic perspective.

Muller's exercise for this week is regular prayer -- simple and short, but enacted in a regular rhythm. He uses the Catholic Angelus as his example, a midday pause for a prayer that the faithful were taught to recite silently to themselves at the cue of a ringing churchbell. It is, in some ways, a revision of the exercise from an earlier chapter in which one was to take a mundane cue (ringing phone, or in Cristopher's case the use of a fountain pen) to take three deep breaths.

I object to the exercise because it presumes that there is someone or something there to pray to. (At some point, it would probably be easier going if I reconciled myself to this book's devotional slant. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that if I were you, folks.) The exercise excludes, or at minimum, disregards, everyone who doesn't perceive or believe in a someone or something.

Happily, there will be another chapter and another exercise coming next week.

Interestingly, to me at least, the exercise that has stuck with me the most so far is the practice of guerrilla blessing. My time on the highways gives me lots of opportunities to bless other drivers and passengers, but I also frequently bless the people at my gym in the mornings. I need to start doing it with my co-workers, some of whom have tried my always dramatically limited patience in recent weeks, and with the playwrights who send me their work.

Cristopher's posting on this chapter appears here; Tripp's, here. (Tripp, please go look through the comments on Cristopher's post -- there seems to be a question before us.)