Rest

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
 then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
[Isaiah 58:13-14 NRSV]

“Contemplative prayer is to develop one’s relationship with Christ in such a depth that you can move beyond words and thoughts and rest in one’s relationship to God.”
[A quote from Father Thomas Keating a Cistercian monk, and author who was being interviewed on National   Public Radio 8/8/95.]

The Sabbath is unique among the days.  Of the seven days outlined in the Hebrew creation-story, only the Sabbath is named.  All the others are simply numbered in relationship to Sabbath.  Also, the Hebrew Sabbath is a radical rejection of previous ways of thinking about time which were all connected to planting and harvest and which ultimately referenced the cycles of Sun or Moon.  The idea that every seventh day (without regard to the "season") was special and set apart for rest was new in human history.   To organize time around planting & harvest is to organize time in categories of production and consumption.  To organize time around rest, is indeed a radical change!
[PHL, I was inspired to these thoughts by interaction with Walter Brueggemann on the subject of Sabbath Keeping and the more general keeping of time.]

The House at Rest
By Jessica Powers

On a dark night
Kindled in love with yearnings
Oh, happy chance!
I went forth unobserved,
My house being now at rest.
-Saint John of the Cross

How does one hush one's house,
each proud possessive wall, each sighing rafter,
the rooms made restless with remembered laughter
or wounding echoes, the permissive doors,
the stairs that vacillate from up to down,
windows that bring in color and event from countryside or town,
oppressive ceilings and complaining floors?

The house must first of all accept the night.
Let it erase the walls and their display,
impoverish the rooms till they are filled
with humble silences; let clocks be stilled
and all the selfish urgencies of day.

Midnight is not the time to greet a guest,
Caution the doors against both foes and friends,
and try to make the windows understand
their unimportance when the daylight ends.
Persuade the stairs to patience, and deny
the passages their aimless to and fro.
Virtue it is that puts a house at rest.
How well repaid that tenant is, how blest
who, when the call is heard,
is free to take his kindled heart and go.