<< Backstory Pt 1-of-3: Bats & the Bible (how our family started practicing Sabbath)
Backstory Pt 3-of-3: Practicing Sabbath >>
Remember the sabbath day, keep it holy…
“You guys never do that!”
“Yeah, you’re bad because you don’t do what God says!”
“Remember the bats, mama!”
It was Pentecost 2020 and my children’s shrieks of condemnation and glee echoed off the dining room walls as we read the Ten Commandments aloud.
After twelve weeks of stay at home orders, our family had decided that we needed to “do something for church” since zoom church wasn’t great for the kids and it appeared “normal” church was a long way off. And Pentecost seemed a great day to get started.
I planned a little morning service with a reading of the giving of the Law on Sinai, a Bible Project video on the tongues of fire at Pentecost, and a breakfast extravaganza. Just like teaching children that the Torah is sweet by covering letters with honey, so that when their grubby little hands move between the text and their mouths they know the sweetness of learning and God’s law in their bodies, I wanted to make our Sunday morning time of prayer and talking about our Bible reading sweet for my children. Since Pentecost correlates to Shavuot, which is dairy holiday, I had French toast, strawberries, maple syrup, and whipped cream waiting in the kitchen.
But my children had forgotten about breakfast amid their excitement over calling out my religious observance (or lack thereof). Why did my children feel so passionate about following God’s commandments?
“Remember the bats, mama…” my son insisted.
Yes. The bats.
I want my kids to love God but that also means loving God’s law, loving the ways that God has revealed God’s self. And I want them to take the text seriously, as stories that bind them and keep them, even as they learn to live into and keep that story for themselves. And the kids were right. My husband and I have never been good at practicing Sabbath. Before we moved to Oregon, we were at church every week, but we almost never took the whole day off together just to rest. We’d take a night or two together without the kids, but with a home-based business and an academic career, nachos or pizza while witching TV was the closest we came to practicing Sabbath.
In the face of my children’s disapproval, I had to ask, should we start practicing Sabbath? Do I have time to practice Sabbath? Since the next commandment is “Honor your father and mother,” it didn’t seem like a great moment to challenge such enthusiastic biblical literalism.
“You’re right. We don’t do a good job at this. Should we start to practice Sabbath together?”
Seeing their chance to forever secure a day without chores, my children swiftly affirmed the command and our need to practice it as a family.
We agreed on Friday night through Saturday evening, since (as my daughter pointed out) I occasionally preach and that is “work.” (Plus, going to church is work, too, my son chimed in…we will have to address that later). We discussed that Sabbath is a communal practice in the Bible, so everyone and everything—even the animals—get to rest…but for that to be possible, we’d have to work as a team each week make sure all the chores were done before Friday evening. So enamored were they with a chore-free day, my children agreed to the preparation Friday would require. And so, because of the bats and my children’s tendency toward laziness, we started practicing Sabbath together.
And it has been wonderful.
My children are so committed to the practice that they now dust, vacuum, clean the bathrooms, and do all the laundering every Friday morning. We go grocery shopping in the afternoon and make sure the veggies are harvested and the garden set. They help me cook the evening meal. We have fresh bread, wine, and long conversations around the dinner table.
And even when the work isn’t finished, the grown-ups are slowly learning to stop and rest despite the remaining tasks.
A few Saturdays ago, I pulled out a laundry hamper to start some washing. I wasn’t thinking anything in particular: the basket of dark clothes was full and needed washing. My son, wandering out of his room and rubbing sleep from his eyes, noticed me pulling the hamper out of the bathroom. He gently put his hand on my arm. Confused, thoughtful, his voice barely above a whisper, “But mama, it’s shabbat.”
Hearing that ancient word come unconsciously from his little mouth—a word I never taught him but that he now knows in his own body—I wondered, am I the one forming my children, or are they the ones forming me?
grace & peace,
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