On Mindful Monday, my readers and I practice the art of pausing, TRYING to be still, or considering, ever so briefly, the big picture. We’re hoping this soul time will provide enough peace of mind to get us through the week!
It’s been awhile since I’ve thought about the third commandment: “Keep holy the Sabbath.” While reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s new book “An Altar in the World” I realized not only was I ignoring the third commandment in my life, but that practicing it might lead me to some of that peace I am always pursuing.
Practicing the Sabbath–saying no, even for one day–runs contrary to our work- and achievement-driven culture.
Seriously. Think about it. When someone asks you how you are, what is your response?
“I’m okay, but I wish I had more things going on in my life, because I get bored every now and then.” If so, you’re wearing the big L (loser) on your forehead.
Busyness equals success. It’s a sign that you are important. And powerful. Taylor is so right when she says, “As much as most of us complain about having too much to do, we harbor some pride that we are in such demand. We admire people who are able to keep more balls in the air than we are, and when they drop one we instinctively avert our eyes. We feel their pain.”
Recently a friend told me that she has given her 30-day notice to her prestigious law firm because she’s done working 80 hours a week. “I need my health back,” she explained to me. “Nothing is more important than that–my physical and mental health–and my job robs me of those every day. I’ll wait tables again. I don’t care.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about her decision and about Taylor’s eight chapter, “The Practice of Saying No: Sabbath.” It was on my mind last night, when I collapsed into bed from exhaustion and asked Eric: “Are we too busy because we have too many legitimate things to do, or are we doing something wrong? Each of us was too tired to answer.
A recovering perfectionist herself, Taylor gets why saying no is so hard: “I know that saying no is a more difficult spiritual practice than tithing, praying on a cold stone floor, or visiting a prisoner on death row–because while all of those worthy activities my involve saying no to something else so that I an do them instead, they still amount to doing more instead of less.”
We are afraid that if we start saying no that we start down the dangerous path of complacency and laziness, ending up as a guest on the Dr. Phil show with an addiction to afternoon soap operas. But Taylor asks an important question: why do so many people put ‘thou shalt not do any work’ in a different category as ‘thou shalt not kill’ or ‘thou shalt have no other gods before me’?
It’s difficult. Man is it difficult putting the work down and closing the computer. I know that from having practiced one Sabbath so far. Like Taylor says, it feels more like sickness than peace or blessing because your body and mind are going through a kind of work and stress withdrawal. But if you stay with it, you get past the withdrawal to a better place. Taylor writes: “As you slow down, your heart does too. The girdle of your diaphragm loosens, causing great sighs too deep for words to pour from your body. In their wake, you discover more room around your heart, a greater capacity for fresh air.”