Ceasing Productivity and Accomplishment

Just when I'm feeling guilty about my post-exam unproductive life, I read this from Marva Dawn's Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting

Setting aside a Holy Sabbath means that we can cease our productivity and accomplishments for one day in every seven. The exciting thing about such a practice is that it changes our attitudes for the rest of the week. It frees us up to worry less about how much we produce on the other days. Furthermore, when we end that futile chasing after wind, we can truly rest and learn delight in new ways.

I desperately need to keep Sabbaths faithfully so that this attitude can increasingly pervade the rest of my days; I still get too easily frustrated if I think I have not accomplished enough in a day. During the times when I am not able to do very much, I forget that more important things are happening in me as God works to change my character and transform me into his likeness. If I am so worried about my productivity, I usually miss the lessons he is allowing me to experience so that I can be changed.

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Too often we failed to appreciate others because they don't meet our expectations, because they are not as good as us at certain things, or because they don't measure up to the world's standard for usefulness. It seems to me that the Church could take the lead in suggesting other values by which to cherish individuals. Certainly the One who created and formed us made each of us a unique individual with special attributes. If we can give up our need to produce and to judge others similarly by their accomplishments, we can be freed to value those particular gifts that others bring into the world. Thus our Sabbath ceasing from productivity can bring great healing into our lives as well as into the lives of those around us.

Obviously, one of the Sabbath practices that supports this ceasing from productivity is the intentional choice to use time simply to be with people. The point is not necessarily to do anything-- perhaps to play, perhaps to share a needed time of gentle affection, but above all simply to be together. We can help each other learn not to find a person's value in his or her accomplishment. Accordingly, one of the greatest gifts of the Christian community can be this nurturing of a better sense of ourselves, a sense not tied in with our usefulness and success. I speak idealistically, of course. It grieves me that our Christian communities get tied into the world's value system and forget this constant message of the Scriptures: that we are worthy because we are loved by God. I hope that you who are reading this book can take your lead in your parishes to cease using productivity as the yardstick by which the value of others is measured.