Do you think, in this day and age, people can still relate to the word ‘Sabbath’?
Although only some will
feel at home with the word
‘Sabbath’, I think the idea of Sabbath – i.e. the notion of regular
times of withdrawal, rest and reflection – is one that meets with wide
resonance throughout society, from those who would consider themselves
religious as well as many who would not.
Who has Sabbath been
written for and why?
I wrote it first and
foremost for myself, as a way of struggling with the question of how to fulfil
a demanding professional job marked by an ever-increasing workload, in a way
that is true to my deepest spiritual convictions and beliefs. Yet I wrote it
very much in company with, and for, others who live with the same or sharper
dilemmas: my colleagues at Queen’s and in the Faculty of Religion and Theology
at VU Amsterdam, as well as the brothers at Glasshampton monastery and the
sisters at Malling Abbey. Anyone who
knows anything about the monastic life knows that this ancient way of life
holds huge wisdom within its rule of life for contemporary seekers, in the ways
in which it seeks to balance prayer, work, study and rest; yet small, ageing
monastic communities are living at the sharp end of the kinds of tensions and
dilemmas the rest of us live with. I
also wrote it for poets who, at their best, enshrine the kind of reflective
wisdom Sabbath speaks of, yet who also struggle to keep the space and the
quality of contemplative wisdom that is at the heart of all creative work.
Do you find that the very
act of putting pen to paper helps still the mind?
Yes. Writing is, for me, a
way of focusing down on the essentials, paying attention to what is going on
both within and beyond the self, and seeking words that clarify and illuminate
experience. I don’t really know what I think or feel until I put it into words
– which might be in conversation with another, but very often is in
conversation with myself through writing.
Wendell Berry features
prominently in the book as one of your muses – he had a profound mistrust of
technology. How can we have a mature relationship with technology now that it
pervades our lives?
This is something I
wrestle with – and of course, very many of us do (and perhaps I feel that those
who don’t wrestle with the question at all may be most in danger from absolute
captivation by technology). I do think
there is a wisdom in Wendell Berry’s mistrust of machines or at least his
insistence on only using the most basic level technology to do what needs to be
done, rather than investing in ever more complex and sophisticated machines
which render human labour obsolete and reinforce the dominance of the market.
Or, if we can’t manage that level of restraint, perhaps we can practice fasting
from the technology and machines we use on a regular basis; switching machines
off at least once every 24 hours and for longer stretches of time. If nothing else, trying to manage without
technology for a while may enable us to experience our dependence on and even
addiction to mobile phones, ipads and so on, and invite us to consider how far
our need of God has been projected onto other kinds of technological ‘needs’ or
dependencies.
Would you agree with the
statement: Tools – e.g. your tablet, mobile phone etc - are not neutral?
Yes, absolutely. The tools
we use to do anything have a power over us; we invest them with meaning and
purpose, and the more we invest in them, the greater their power over us. The new materialism (a movement in philosophy
and aesthetics) even speaks about the agency of things, challenging the notion
that it is only humans who exercise agency. For example, if we handle guns or
other weapons enough, and if we carry a gun or keep a gun in our home
habitually, it is hardly surprising if we learn to harbour aggressive and
violent thoughts and the gun tutors us towards doing harm. The objects we
choose to look at, own, surround ourselves by, employ are a form of our
‘treasure’ and, as the gospel has it, ‘where our treasure is, there will our
hearts be’.
What are we gaining from
technology? What are we losing?
This feels like a huge
question (or two!). Too big to answer now – read the book!!
How can nature help us in
balancing our lives?
We are part of the natural
world, not apart from it, though the vast majority of us who live urban lives
may have little or no sense of that connectedness to nature. Yet we are utterly dependent on air, earth,
water and fire for our most basic human needs. More broadly, I think human
beings crave beauty and that craving is satisfied most simply, and without
cost, by the natural forms that grow and live around us – trees, plants,
animals, forests, mountains, rivers, seas and so on. Equally profoundly, the natural rhythms and
cycles of birth, growth, harvest, decay and death which we experience in the
seasons teach us how to live within the different seasons of our own lives, if
we will allow them to.
Can you explain the
concept of ‘living the hours’ as advocated by David Whyte?
Whyte is talking about a
particular relationship with time, a consciousness of the rhythm of things that
gives a certain spaciousness to our work and the rest of our lives. He
advocates the valuing of what might look, from a certain perspective, to be the
insignificant gaps or pauses between activities, but actually give everything
else their shape and form. For example, he speaks of the place of rests and
silences in any piece of music (and, we might add, in poetry or in
conversation). Remove the pauses and
rests, and the result will be a horrible cacophony. This reminds me of one of
the sayings in the Tao Teh Ching, chapter 11:
Thirty
spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It
is the centre hole that makes it useful.
Shape
clay into a vessel;
It
is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut
doors and windows for a room;
It
is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore
profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness
from what is not there.
That’s a
very good paraphrase of the Sabbath command!
As well as our need for
silence and stillness, you talk about the need for conversation as part of
Sabbath – can you elaborate?
When I talk about
‘conversation’, I am thinking of conversation in a literal sense
– the kind of conversation one might have around the dinner table with family
and friends (and that may be a particular feature of Jewish celebration of the
Sabbath), but I’m also using ‘conversation’ as a metaphor for any kind of
engaged dialogue with the self, other and God, that can be one of the fruits of
silence and stillness. The rest that is
at the heart of Sabbath is not a sterile emptiness, but a generative, fecund
space where we discover what our own hearts may be saying to us, or where we
listen attentively to the other, including the voice of God which we often
drown out by our own chatter and busyness. Conversation is one way of speaking
of the backwards-and-forwards exchange that takes place between self, other and
God in the playful and restful space of Sabbath.
Do you think, as
individuals and as communities, we are steadily losing our ability to reflect
and therefore relate to each other?
I’m very fortunate to
belong to a work community, dedicated to theological education, as well as to a
local parish church, that are characterised by profound practices of
reflection, of listening and seeking to make sense of experience in the light
of scripture and tradition. Although it’s easy to be cynical about the nature
of modern life, particularly as it is reflected in the endless chatter and
visual bombardment of social media, there are also signs of hope that people
are hungry for reflective relationship. The growth of interest in poetry, for
example (both the popularity of writing poetry, attending poetry festivals and
reading, and buying contemporary poetry), is one sign of a vibrant capacity for
reflective habits.
How can Sabbath be
observed as a remedy?
The practice of Sabbath
is, at the same time, stunningly simple and, like many truly simple things, can
be hard to commit to. But in a sense, the invitation to stop on a regular basis
and rest, to desist from labour for a while and replenish, is built into the
very structure of our lives. It may be
more a question of simply receiving what is already there and acceding to it.
For example, everyone sleeps as part of their daily practice, although we may
allow ourselves more or less sleep, and some people struggle with getting good
or enough sleep. If we can be
intentional about the way we give ourselves to sleep each night, allow
ourselves to receive that rest as a regenerating gift, and go gratefully into
each night, perhaps marking that passage into the night with the lighting of
candles and the saying of prayers, we might receive that daily/nightly consent
to unconsciousness as a Sabbath gift. Or when we pause in the day for a coffee
break or to share a meal with colleagues or family members, we may receive this
time as a space in the day for nourishment of more than the body. Every day
contains countless opportunities for momentary – or longer – liminal
passageways, pauses, between this and that; the daily commute or walk to work,
dropping off the children at school, and so on. Rather than trying to fit
something ‘extra’ into our days, Sabbath may be more a practice of conscious
acknowledgement of the pauses that already exist within the rhythm of our days,
and practicing gratitude for them.
Nicola
Slee is a poet, an
acclaimed author in the fields of feminist and practical theology, spirituality
and prayer, Director of Research at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical
Theological Education, Birmingham, Professor of Feminist Practical Theology at
the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and Visiting Professor at the University of
Chester.
Sabbath:The hidden heartbeat of our lives is
available now in paperback, priced £9.99.
No comments:
Post a Comment