I had the absolute privilege to take the last six weeks of 2021 for sabbath rest. As I return to work the first week of January, I was met with a wave of actions, vigils, and reflections on January 6th. As I reflect on this day that will forever be scar on the American experiment, I realize one thing - America needs a sabbath.
Sabbath is more than just an extended vacation. Scripturally sabbath was designed to allow the land - and people - a chance to rest and heal. Sabbath not only requires us to sit back and take a nap (that is definitely part of it), but it also requires us to acknowledge the work that needs to be done for healing. For a national sabbath, we need to create opportunities for everyone to step back from the crisis-to-crisis atmosphere of a 24 hour news cycle. Only after the rest can we begin to heal deep wounds that have divided our communities since the beginning.
Sabbath is about Rest.
You ever feel like your brain is an internet browser window with too many tabs opened? That is how I have felt for the past 6months. I was constantly busy, but a lot of time and energy was spent jumping back-and-forth between the tabs in my brain (and on my computer screen!) One day, I was actually in 3 zoom meetings at the same time. This isn’t a flex, this is a confession of my inability to prioritize and focus. Instead of doing 1 meeting well, I did three meetings poorly.
Sabbath allowed my brain to close many of those tabs to focus on what mattered in the moment.
The reality is when we can focus on a few things, we can do them really well. So often, in our non-profit and advocacy circles we spend our time and energy trying to do a little bit of everything, and everything ends up being mediocre. We need to create work cultures that allow us to do a few things really well instead of a lot of things all the time.
American families need a rest.
Americans see this growing inequality in our world. Many of us were promised that if you work hard, you will be alright. Reality is different. People work hard and still get left behind. Too many of our neighbors are sitting up at night trying to figure out how to fix the house, keep food on the table, manage the kids schedules, all while finding new sources of household income to make ends meet.
As long as families across the country are struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table, they are unable to rest. Student debt forgiveness, reducing rent and mortgage payments, making childcare and healthcare available, and creating other policies to support families will provide Americans an opportunity to rest.
Sabbath is about healing.
While weight is a poor measure of health, I can report that 6 weeks of hike (about 150 miles in all) led me to lose about about 15 pounds! More importantly than an artificial number, my energy levels are up, my sleep is more restful, and my blood pressure is down. The pandemic caused me to fall into even more unhealthy habits - such as snacking on high sugar foods all day long, not having a normal sleep schedule, constant stress of work, and much more. Now as I begin 2022, my body feels the need for more healthy living. In 6 weeks, I began to heal my body from a very sedentary lifestyle.
I realized the hardest step of hiking the parks wasn’t the first step of the hike, or even the steps going up hill or across extremely wet trails. (Note: Waterproof boots only work when the water level remains below the top of the boot!) The hardest step was picking up the map, and my daypack after dropping off one of the kids at school and putting on my boots.
My body fought me in breaking out of the routine of sitting in a chair all day long, but once I got going, my motivation increased.
The hardest step is to commit to taking action and healing.
America needs to heal.
Anger is a legitimate reaction when you work hard and are unable to get ahead. Anger is a legitimate reaction at the injustices in our world. But how we respond to our anger makes a big difference. What I saw on January 6th was a lot of angry people. Some of them were angry because they falsely believe that the election was stolen, others believe that the growing diversity of America is a threat to their lives. Others are angry because they have realized that the American dream of hard work leading to economic security and success isn’t actually true. Sadly, there are forces in our culture that have a history of exploiting people’s anger fo their own benefit. This is the roots of racism in America. If we can divide people, then the wealthy and powerful can exploit groups and pit them against each other..
These forces that want us divided as a nation are tricky and hurtful. We have all been scarred by the alt-right’s desire to divide and keep America segregated by class, race, ideology, and identity.
January 6th was a clear sign of our need for a sabbath
Why do I think America needs sabbath? Because we need rest and we need to heal as a nation. So often, after change in the US history we go into backlash and tension. After the Civil War, instead of civil rights, we had Jim Crow. After the civil rights movement, we had mass incarceration. And at the same time, the divisions were used to fight against unions, anti-hunger policies, and much more. There was never a chance to heal.
Simply put, we’re all tired.
We are all tired. We are all broken. Racial justice activists are tired. Families struggling to put food on their tables are tired. Environmentalists are tired. Teachers are tired. Small business owners and family farmers are tired. Kids struggling with their parents opioid addiction are tired. On January 6th, we witnessed how easy it is for political rhetoric to manipulate legitimate anxieties and fears into a weapon and direct it to attack.
Americans on the left and right have seen the exploitation of people. Sadly, false prophets exploited these anxieties and fears and radicalized people into violence on January 6th. We can add more security gates and armed officers to prevent insurrectionists from getting that close to political assassination in the future, but it won’t end the threats until we confront these hard conversations around racial and economic exploitation and injustice.
We need a sabbath rest. We need to heal as a nation. We need to rest and then do the work of calling out those forces that seek to divide America. We then need to load up our daypacks and get to the work of healing. Because America has always been divided. America was built on segregation and exploitation. To do the work of healing, it is time that we acknowledge that there is real hurt and we want to heal.
Only then, can we begin the real work of building up the beloved community.