All my life I stepped into a special realm of joy and peace and holiness once a week. No, it wasn’t a spa or a sweat lodge. It was Sunday, that most basic but overlooked of religious practices.
As a child I kept the holy day thanks to my parents’ example, then as a young adult out of habit. Now my family keeps it out of conviction and necessity. Frankly, we’d go crazy without that one-in-seven respite. We walk to church for Mass, then we linger outside chatting, walk home, stop to buy our children a treat, and then eat a big breakfast. We blob out, play games or sports or music, go for a hike or a swim or to a museum, visit the home-bound, and often have friends over for dinner. No chores, no email, no talk of money or worries about work, no TV till late afternoon. As parents, we try to curb angry words or even reprimands. It is a time with God, with each other and with our better natures. It is God’s great gift to us.
A Jewish friend who loved the Sabbath as an oasis in time renewed my appreciation of Sunday. Then I looked over at the Muslims, who gather for congregational prayer on Friday in the early afternoon. Though they can return to work, Juma involves many of the aspects as the Lord’s Day and Shabbat: eternity, divinity, community, family and charity.
To find out more, I spent four years writing a book on the topic. To understand and illustrate the theology and history of the Sabbath, I spent time with a Jewish family, a Muslim family and, more deliberately, with my own family. By bowing and kneeling with the Muslims at the mosque, I felt the unity and surrender of Islam. By strolling several miles with the Jews from the synagogue to someone’s house for lunch, I entered a holy bubble free of concern and haste.
My family took steps to deepen the experience and make it a habit. From the Jews we learned to get ready ahead of time and then draw a line beyond which we cease. The Muslims taught me the importance of worshipping with dignity, grace and hospitality to visitors.
All three date the Sabbath to Creation, though they diverge beyond that. Given the holy day’s importance, we’ve often fought over it. But given its shared history and gifts, the holy day can be a bridge to peace among the children of Abraham, half the world’s residents. Indeed, all religions and most non-religious people treasure a regular day of rest, retreat and joy.
Give it a try. Take small steps. You may feel the urge to finish those chores, check your email or write that report. Resist! You’ll be surprised how much you can let go for a day. Chances are you’ll want to do so again next week.
Christopher D. Ringwald, a journalist and visiting scholar at the Sage Colleges in Albany, is author of "A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath" (Oxford, 2007).
