The Gift of Sabbath Time

Today’s post is by Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin.

I didn’t realize it at first, but I was given a gift this evening.

My fiancé was working late, my son’s lacrosse game was cancelled, and the project I thought I had to do evaporated.

Distant thunder called me out to the porch. Dramatic summer storms are so beautiful, exciting, and thrilling.

I sat down to enjoy the show, but found myself mesmerized by the steady rain falling in the woods. It lulled me into awareness. Breathing slowed, muscles relaxed. Then the exhale of gratitude for this moment, for these extended moments, and the slipping into a sense of the Holy.

Then, my breath caught and I realized I’m holding back. What is that about, I wonder? Oh, the to-do list perhaps or the fear that I’m going to go too deep. I’m aware that there are so many things I’d like to do in this quiet, this pause. How laughable! I’m about to fill my quiet time. “So, Holy Spirit, could you hurry up and show me the epiphany of some sort because I don’t get much time to read and I need to finish that book on spiritual direction.”

I shake my head at myself. There are so few moments of downtime. Daily meditation and gratitude time are not chunks of Sabbath. I tend to want to shoehorn in lots of spiritual activities!

Perhaps the call I’m realizing this evening is to schedule in larger chunks of rest time and to prepare for it so there isn’t that panic to get lots of spiritual stuff done during that time.

Instead of seeing Sabbath time as a period to do spiritual activities, perhaps it’s a time to just enjoy God. If during that time there’s a leading to do something contemplative, that may be okay, but only if it’s being done out of love and not a sense of urgency or accomplishment.

You may have gotten this long ago, but I am just realizing this means I need to prepare for this true time off. I believe it means I need to try to move some other things out in order to let in the spiritual relishing.

I see I am wrestling with bigger issues here, ones regarding how to structure life, my whole life. I now understand why my breath caught. What’s being pondered here is how to really live my life. What can I get rid of so Sabbath time can be without structure and the deep desire to do 17 things at once?

Sabbath is a time for rest, not just other kinds of recreation.

The rain continues to pour down hard enough to stop all outside activities. A forced rest of sorts, at least from what we’d do outdoors. And I realize there is an aspect of respect at play here too.

I have a healthy respect for lots of things I love: the ocean and fire to name a couple. And with these things I know there are boundaries, things I need to do in order to enjoy them. The same is true for Sabbath. I need to have a healthy respect for it and do certain things in order to really enjoy that sacred time. I need to not cram it full of to-dos, even if they are spiritual. I need to give myself enough other holy pockets to pursue those other activities. I need to rework my schedule to make sure I block out actual Sabbath chunks and not just an hour here or there.

And then, I need to just relish God during Sabbath and rest in that enjoyment. It seems a little like a tall order now, but I realize I’ve been giving it the short shrift and getting ripped off by my own actions (or inactions). One step at a time. I can take the baby steps of rearranging some time weekly to pursue my other interests and work on the preparation. This will be a work in progress, but then again, so am I!

By giving the preparation and respect it needs, I will be getting so much more out of Sabbath time. And, the end result will be delicious!

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By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. You can see more of her writing at blessedjourneyblog.com.

Changes

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing atblessedjourneyblog.com. Photo by Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin.

We’ve all heard the saying, when one door shuts God opens a window.

When my job was outsourced at the beginning of the year I was not clear what I was to do next. Where was God leading me? I had a sense that I was supposed to just be, do what I was already doing (writing blogs, working on our plumbing company, etc.). And, I also knew it was not forever, that something was waiting in the wings, but I couldn’t make out what that was.

At the beginning of July, Bryan Berghoef from the Shalem staff will start managing this blog. With this chapter of life closing I am better able to hear what the next step is for me. “Show me” what to do next has been a prayer of mine for months and it’s funny, but I got clear on the next step once I knew I would no longer be managing this blog.

I’ll still write a blog . Please join me at Blessed Journeys Blog where I’ll continue this walk. I’ll also write the occasional blog here. What’s new is that I’ll be completing my coursework as a spiritual director as well as planning more retreats and programs. I want to run and rush into it all, but again, Spirit is cautioning me to go slowly, breathe, take time.

It has been such a blessing to be a part of Shalem’s foray into the world of spiritual blogging (it’s always a blessing to be part of what Shalem is doing!). I thank you all for being on this journey with us and I look forward to our paths crossing again!

Simple Gifts

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing atblessedjourneyblog.com. Photo by Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin.

Teacher of Simplicity, who lifts us as we let go,
Use this silence to focus our intention on each breath. Empty us of what is no longer useful and fill us with unique energies that bring healing to our world. Show us the ways we overextend ourselves taking on more than we can manage. Guide us in living more simply, releasing everything we hold too tightly so that we can carry more compassion. Send us floating through this day reminded that each moment has it’s own wholeness. Amen—Janet Salbert

Janet’s prayer struck a cord in me—a needed reminder.

I am drawn to simplicity, whether it’s my workout, religion, dress, or spiritual disciplines, but life still gets complicated. So I need to keep coming back to home base, keep releasing everything I hold too tightly.

When I allow life to get complicated and extravagant I lose touch with God. All the other Stuff gets piled on top of the Holy One and I start to miss my connection. I am set adrift and need to find my anchor again.

My Honey had his birthday a couple of weekends ago. I was reminded of the tension between extravagance and simplicity in preparation for his celebration. How much does one do to make the day special?

When the kids were young we focused on what we called Simple Gifts. I found an old coupon from my daughter the other day for “1 free room cleaning” written in her 5^th-grade hand. Other gifts we exchanged were back rubs, hand rubs, extra dessert, a coupon to “skip a chore,” etc. These were beloved gifts, ones of time and energy, but very limited monetary value.

What I came up with for his birthday was a mixture of a couple presents and deeds, because what I realized was that what’s really important on a birthday is that the person feels especially loved. Ends up that his favorite gift was the whole morning we set aside and just talked and ate a leisurely breakfast on the porch. It was the simple gift where he could feel the love and the connection.

I think that’s how it is with God too. We don’t need anything fancy, we just need to show up with an open heart. God’s ready to hand out those simple gifts!

The Blessing of Silence

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing atblessedjourneyblog.com.

I love silent retreats. Usually there are people who attend who have experienced the great quiet before and are hungry for more. And then there are people who are there for the first time. They usually express some trepidation about what is going to happen. Questions like, what do I do and am I going to be bored arise. But then there is the anxiety about the unknown that is about to be embarked upon that can be seen in their eyes.

Many of us are used to the clutter and white noise that surrounds so much of society. When it’s gone, it is noticeable and a foreign feeling. We are so used to chatter of one sort or another filling our time and ears.

But, as John of the Cross says, silence is God’s first language.

I think it’s a matter of perspective. When I am introducing a silent retreat, I explain that the silence is not a time of doing without. It is not a time of not talking, it is a time of listening. It is a time of making space for the richness, the fullness that the Holy has to offer.

The silence is a place to deeply listen, fall back into it. Listen to the rustle of leaves, the exhale, the still small voice where we can hear God. Silence is a place of creation, a place of letting go, of emptying ourselves from clutter, of filling up with abundance.

In the silence we can come home to the fullness and richness where we can begin to feel it is safe to open up to your true selves. It is a place where we can be instead of focusing on doing.

There are times in my life that I actually hunger for the Holy Silence. When the world is too much, when the stress and strain ratio is too high, then there is nothing as healing as an extended, deep silence. Ahhh….what a relief!

“There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven.”–Meister Eckhart

 

Originally published on Blessed Journey’s Blog.

The Blessing of Laughter

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing at blessedjourneyblog.com.

My daughter graduated from college last month. She is home for a few weeks before she moves across the country for her new job (!). My son and I were sitting in her room with her while last night as she went through her stuff, deciding what to keep, to give away, and to take with her. While going through the different items she came upon her old diaries. The three of us were in stitches listening to her middle school angst, her passionate monologues on crushes, and her vitriolic picture of a teacher.

The next morning we talked about how delicious it is to be able to laugh at one’s self, to look back and realize how ridiculous and melodramatic we can be at times. We don’t have to just take the long view of years past. I can look back at 10 minutes ago and laugh at how childish I was.

Somehow, laughing at myself allows me to remember the humanness, the beautiful imperfection that dwells in all of us. For me it is so much easier to break that pattern, to shift my behavior if I’m not on my high horse, but down in the mud with the evidence of my folly all over.

Also, laughter is so healing. There is actually medical humor or laugh therapy. Cancercenter.com says, “Studies have revealed that episodes of laughter helped to reduce pain, decrease stress-related hormones and boost the immune system in participants.”

Laughter, another gift we are blessedly born with, and one that should be used often. May you laugh long and often!

Being a Companion

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing at blessedjourneyblog.com.

How does one support a dear one in your life who is torn apart by something you can’t fix or even fully understand?

There have been times in my life when a loved one has been struggling through an experience that I have never had and can’t totally fathom. I want so much to support this person, but feel encumbered by my lack of experience in the area of their pain.

At times, just physically being with them or carrying the tools of open-hearted listening and physically and emotionally being there are of some solace. No words are necessary, they wouldn’t help anyway.

But there are other times when the person is seeking active support. How do we do that?

I don’t know what suffering from depression, for example, feels like. I can’t think of ways that might help when they ask for it.

As I hold the suffering up in prayer, and hold myself up in prayer as a caregiver, I can feel the Light flowing into both of us. Sometimes that feels like enough. Sometimes their pain is so large nothing feels like enough but I take some solace in knowing they are not alone on this journey and neither am I.

Parker Palmer touches on this in his book Let Your Life Speak. He talks of one of his depressions where a friend was able to just BE with him. “He never tried to invade my awful inwardness with false comfort or advice; he simply stood on its boundaries, modeling the respect for me and my journey—and the courage to let it be—that I myself needed if I were to endure.”

This is “the kind of love that neither avoids nor invades the soul’s suffering. It is a love in which we represent God’s love to a suffering person, a God who does not ‘fix’ us but gives us strength by suffering with us. By standing respectfully and faithfully at the borders of another’s solitude, we may mediate the love of God to a person who needs something deeper than any human being can give.”

When times are scary and dark, hearing, “I am with you” can get us through.

Parenthood: The Spiritual Track

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing at blessedjourneyblog.com.

 

I remember being pregnant with my now-22-year-old daughter and realizing the miracle of what was going on. I was no less awed when I was pregnant with my son five years later. And it wasn’t just babyhood that wowed me. It was so clear from the beginning that these little beings were here to teach me a lot about love, letting go of control, making decisions and realizing it’s not just this bowl of cereal but any other snack ever again, acting mature, being my best self, and so much more.

Trying to be the best parent I could be was a spiritual discipline for me, and just like with other disciplines, I did better at some times than others. And, just like with other disciplines, I read, studied, took classes, and practiced, keeping my leading with me as a companion. I didn’t have to create a ritual with this spiritual practice, I lived it in awareness (mostly).

I think the biggest lesson was to turn it over to God. When there was something hard going on, I still lamented, but I knew I was not alone. The children taught me to let go of control not just because it doesn’t work, but also because I realized the Holy Presence was my co-parent.

Last weekend was Mother’s Day and the weekend of my daughter’s graduation from college (what a Mother’s Day gift!). “Parenting” a young adult is so vastly different from the early days. I find there to be much more pure listening and reflection. I guess I’ve grown up a little bit too. Thank God and the children!

The Blessing of Anger

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing at blessedjourneyblog.com.

It’s so easy to think of pleasant, lovely things as spiritual. But, what is the holiness of anger? What about jealousy, frustration, being curt? We all get there, we all experience that snap and realize we are in that painful, acidic place. So what is the purpose?

It can certainly be a red flag that we’ve got some work to do in an area. Is it a Holy nudge to work on the real issue at hand somewhere beyond the justifications?

Someone may have truly done something disrespectful or unkind to us, but what is our response? What is our part in the tension between humans? What is there to grow from in this fecund arena called relationship?

What if we are the brutish one? What is Spirit showing us?

I was talking with a friend the other day and they asked me to do something I really didn’t want to do. It wasn’t immoral or painful or anything, but I just really (really, really) didn’t want to do it. So, I said no. I need to actually mark that on the calendar, because that is an unusual event. I’m usually on the self-sacrificial end of the spectrum. The person “mentioned” something about me being selfish. I had a trigger response (body to mouth, no head) and said, “Yes, maybe I’m being selfish, but what I know is that I’m establishing a boundary.” I was angry at being called selfish, but what I realized was that the gift in this was that the anger helped me stand firm in my nascent skill of standing up for myself in this new way.

Hard emotions are not always pretty or clear, but perhaps if we remember that they can be a guidepost or a flag that says, “Pay attention,” we can not only get over that hump, but maybe even dissolve it all together. These too are gifts, reminders that God is with us here too if we are just open to it.

Can there be a gift in fussiness?

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing at blessedjourneyblog.com.

Have you ever had it happen, when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and have no idea why you’re in a funk? Try as you might to suppress these uncomfortable feelings they still manage to sneak their way into your interactions of the day and you just feel crabby and off.

This happened to me recently. I had no idea where it came from or why, but I suddenly had an “issue” I needed to deal with. And, somehow trying to ignore it just makes it bigger.

So, I looked back into the mirror, not knowing how I got to this place or how to get out. The prayer is simply, “Help.”

Once I stop fighting it and look with honesty at myself the internal fussiness starts to mellow. Funny, but somehow, once I acknowledge it and look at it head on, it dissipates. It’s that little nudge reminding me that I’ve got work to do, reminding me I’m not in control and growth doesn’t happen on my time schedule. Hello, Life! Hello, Spiritual Guidance!

With the Light shining I can see this is the old worthiness issue or the old whatever issue. I can accept it and, with a little more understanding and care for myself, move on, thankful for this humbling little gem.

These little moments force us to live the realness of life, stepping outside our rote behavior to look at the truth. One more reminder that we don’t walk this way alone.

 

The Blessing of a Friend

By Stephanie Gretchen Burgevin. Stephanie is a writer and retreat leader. She is an associate faculty member of Shalem and a graduate of their Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats Program and leads spiritual and secular programs. Stephanie manages Shalem’s blog. You can see more of her writing at blessedjourneyblog.com.

The Holy Spirit shows up in all sorts of ways and places in life. I was reminded of this earlier today when one of my high school best friends called. We had stayed in touch through college and the early days of marriage, but had drifted apart once young children arrived in our lives. The busyness of babies kind of squeezed out those phone calls or letters we earlier could make time for.

Her husband died suddenly last summer. When I heard the news I looked her up and sent her a letter of love and support and a condolence card. She responded with a letter back including her phone number, and we finally were able to talk on the phone this morning. What a joy! The reconnection was food for the soul for both of us.

These kinds of connection can be brief or extended but it is the living presence of what is Holy. It doesn’t have to be a 1.5 hour long phone conversation, it can be a kind gesture of a clerk at the store, the smile of an onlooker. It is the reverberating YES of the universe. You are not alone. I/We are here with you.

But when we manage to open more fully, there is an added dimension that the vulnerability brings. As my friend and I caught up on the past 20 years we felt one another’s joys and sufferings. I carried hers and she carried mine.

This was the sharing of two souls that had spent years opening up to one another. We have a shared history of ridiculously silly behavior, arguments, all kinds of fun, and deeply moving conversations. Twenty years can pass and the soul knows no difference. I have carried her in my heart all this time, for the heart doesn’t know minutes and hours, so when I answered the phone it was like no time had passed. We were home in each other’s friendship.

So however we connect, briefly or deeply, it is a blessing, a Holy visitation in our lives.