I was honored that Charlie Peacock asked me to contribute some thoughts about the intersection of art, worship and justice to the Art House America blog. The blog is a landing place for thoughtful reflection on music, justice, the visual arts, sabbath and many other vital topics.  If you’re a consistent blog reader, add Art House America to your RSS feed… maybe even start with this entry of mine.

Earlier this summer a good friend, who for purposes of anonymity I will heretofore call “Streaky the Supercat” helped me put together some shelving I had purchased at IKEA. I’m not a handy man so building this shelving unit was quite an accomplishment for me; It was my Everest.. I weep even as I type.

That night, after Streaky the Supercat had collected his tools and headed home to giggle with his wife about the dimwit he had assisted with his lego-set, I sat in a chair in the middle of that room and, for at least an hour, just stared happily at the work I had done, saying “that’s good.”  Sure, I could have moved on to the “next step” and started placing things on it’s shelves and hanging things on it’s hangers.  But that was next.  This was now.. and for now… I was done.

In his description of creation, the writer of Genesis notes that God “rested”* on the seventh day.  The language used to describe this moment is very interesting to me.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”  -Genesis 2 (NRSV)

“Finished,.. finished,.. done,.. done,.. done.”   That’s the elusive idea… What does it look like to be “finished”?  To be “done” with ones work?  What is enough?

Being self-employed with a job rooted in creativity means that There is always “more” to be started or achieved. But I recognize that this temptation towards endless “progress” is the very temptation that my father gave in to.  His pursuit of “more” resulted in a darkened vision of his own life in which it was not enough to pay his own bills or send a son to college or have a family. There was more.. more security, more freedom etc… and in the absence of “enough” my father allowed his identity to be shaped by the pursuit of more.. “progress” became his goal and it was the end of him.**

I do not want to fall into the sam patterns my father lived in.  And so I practice the Sabbath.

The invitation and challenge of Sabbath is to learn what “enough” is and rest in it. To have a day in which I can pause and enjoy the good of what is rather than constantly reach for what is not. Likewise,the Sabbath provides a day in which I can see what is not good in a larger context… to separate the light from the darkness, as it were; to sit in the middle of my life, enjoying the work of my hands and the work of other hands as well, ultimately knowing that “it is enough” and even that “it is good.”

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*The particular Hebrew word the writer uses for “rest” is a word that describes a very purposeful choice to cease from work; not the kind of rest that becomes necessary at the end of overexertion.

**I  follow in the line of thought that sees this same drive towards endless progress as part of a cultural mindset in which it is somehow permissible that “we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies” while others are “devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in,” (Martin Luther King Jr. March 31 1968)

I intended on using this clip recently when wrapping up a series of talks on the discipline of Sabbath and rest.  I ran out of time (if you can imagine me talking too long). I think it’s reflective of the uphill battle one faces when trying to discover and maintain a healthy pace of life.

“…turning you… into an instrument of efficiency.”

The goal is efficiency. But not just efficiency as a general principle… efficiency a principle of productivity.  And in order to achieve that goal, one needs to become something more than human.  Namely, one must become a machine; shake off the limitations of his humanity in order to get more done.

In contrast to this image of man becoming machine is an image I found in Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow of humanity as.. well.. as human.  After a series of disappointments and personal discoveries, Jayber rid himself of the one piece of efficiency-boosting machinery he had in his possession; his car.  He now lived, functioned and belonged only to his home-town of Port William.

“I felt older. I felt that I had seen ages of the world come and go.  I had lost every last twinge of the notion that I ought to get somewhere or make something of myself.  I was what I was…”

So, here I sit typing on my 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM and 250GB of drive space watching my iPhone 3g ping to remind me of the text message I’ve not yet read and wondering about my pace of life.  What is it I am chasing that I run as fast as I often do? Success, as did my father? Fame, as I’m told I ought to as an artist? Or maybe it’s just the wind.

Over the past 2 years, my wife and I have implemented a weekly Sabbath, partially in order to step away from the pace of the Marketplace which fosters a need in us for the kind of machinery the above ad is selling (some of which, as you can see, I happily own) but also fosters in us the temptation to become machinery, subjecting ourselves to judgement on the scale of productivity and efficiency. The practice of Sabbath reminds me that I am what I am and that my value will not be established nor will it be shaken according to the work of my hands.