October 15, 2009 by Ragan Sutterfield
In the Priestly creation story of Genesis there is an often repeated phrase “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Gen. 1:5,8,13,19,23,31). This phrase reflects the Jewish understanding of a day beginning not in the morning, as we tend to measure it, but in the evening. This same understanding of the day is reflected in the Christian liturgical calendar as well with holidays such as Easter beginning on the evening before the secular calendar day.
I think there is something profound in this arrangement because it reorients the day toward Sabbath. The day does not begin with the rush of activity and work as it does in our secular understanding. Instead the day begins with rest, it begins with the end of work and ends with the end of work. How might it change our understanding of the world if we reoriented our thinking in this way? Try to begin your day with Sabbath, a long and restful sleep–work is only an interlude.
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October 11, 2009 by Ragan Sutterfield
A few years ago I made an effort to eat locally, I made an effort to shop locally, I made an effort to avoid the big box stores. Now I simply eat locally, shop locally, and largely avoid the big box stores. Those choices are no longer conscious choices. They are simply the outcomes of my form of life. I live in an urban neighborhood closer to small shops than big box stores. I have made very little investment in a good car so I avoid driving as much as possible. I find it easier to buy groceries from local farmers than not because I am a member of a local food club and help operate a small urban farm. This is the key to action: to make it unconscious; to change the material conditions so that what one wants is what simply happens.
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October 9, 2009 by Ragan Sutterfield
We are all familiar with the funeral phrase, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is a Biblical phrase that comes from Genesis 3:19 at the time humankind is being banished from the garden. It is a powerful phrase, one that connotes our mortality. But the word “dust” does not in any way communicate the sense of the Hebrew. In Hebrew the word used is adamah, which means arable, rich agricultural soil, not what we call “dust.” A better translation would be to use the word humus. “You are humus, and to humus you shall return.” This is our reality as creaturely beings. Our entire lives are dependent upon the soil, the humus, and one day our bodies will return to its source.
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September 16, 2009 by Ragan Sutterfield
I have been thinking about time a good deal lately—how I spend it, to whom I give it. Time in our consumer society has become a commodity. Most of us sell it, along with our energy and skill to our employers. We give it to friends and family, but we have to do so in limited ways because we have only so much of it to spend. It is no wonder then that there are whole companies dedicated to the productive use of time. It is a strange space whose boundary is fixed and can be filled well or poorly.
The important first principle of time that we must remember is that there is enough of it. If our activities go beyond our available time then we are doing too much. We are only capable of so much and then we must say, no more.
Time is tied to our desires in the same way consumer goods are. Our fallen desires go beyond our creaturely limits as we seek to be more than we can be. Just as we use injustice to create more money than we should want or need, so we use injustice to go beyond the limits of our time. Fast food is an example of this. Rather than taking the time to cook for ourselves we eat food that was prepared quickly and cheaply at the expense of labor and the environment. If fast food (weather from McDonalds or the Whole Foods frozen dinner aisle) is necessary for your way of life then change it. We only have so much time—relax into the safety of its limits.
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June 11, 2009 by Ragan Sutterfield
Sabbath takes work. Anyone who has tried it knows this and perhaps that is why most of us simply don’t try it. We make excuses; we invent interpretations of Sabbath that fit our efforts to escape it. We leave one of the greatest gifts given us unopened because we are afraid of what it might mean for our lives, of how it might force us to give up things. I have been afraid to open the box, but I have also come to a place where I know I need the gift inside more than my own sense of accomplishment. I am ready to hand over the world of things so that I can enjoy the gift of time, to rest in the delight of the seventh day.
The gift that I am accepting is this: one day in which I am truly free from the world of things; a day when I can simply enjoy and take pleasure in time and the creation that moves through it. Six days a week I manage time in order to accomplish things, but on the Sabbath I manage things in order to accomplish time. This means that I am going to have to give up things, that I am going to have to limit activities, that I am going to have to make hard choices.
Over this month I am working to accomplish this opening of space for the Sabbath. For me this practice is best suited to Saturday since it will be the easiest day to open up entirely, though I hope to push the practice into Sunday as much as possible. In order to limit my activities I am placing two rules on my Sabbath:
1. Don’t use money
2. Don’t drive
My hope is that these two limits will force me to manage space in such a way as to open up time. Of course I am using these rules to help me practice the Sabbath as a gift and will willingly break them when they don’t, but I don’t see how I can practice the Sabbath without placing limits on myself. I chose these two particular limits because they go a long way in freeing me from world of commerce and activity. As time goes on I may have to adjust these limits accordingly, to add or subtract in order to open space for time. If for some reason I cannot practice the Sabbath on a Saturday I plan to substitute another day of the week for that Saturday.
It will take me until the end of the month to fully practice these limits as I finish out commitments that I am giving up, but already I can taste the freedom of the Sabbath day—a day to taste eternity and freedom far beyond choice.
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