"Follow me." Jesus.
(Mark 1:17)
Our Sabbath this week consisted of going to church, coming home, staying at home, and then watching a movie at home. These are very dangerous activities.
For in this twenty-four hour respite from our crowded lives, I suddenly began to think about the hours I spent looking at National Geographic magazines as a boy. The world seemed so big then...and strange and exciting. There was so much time. Much of it I spent sprawled out on the turquoise shag rug in the living room with my World Book Encyclopedias. In high school, our family moved to rural Wyoming. That was like traveling to a completely different country in itself. In college I entertained the idea of the merchant marines and the Peace Corps.
At home, surrounded by people I love, in a place I am very familiar with, in a disengaged moment of reflection, I remembered it's in my DNA...I am prone to wander. Lord I feel it.
But somewhere along the way, the subscription to National Geographic expired. The World Book Encyclopedias and the dreams about traveling the world started to collect dust. I stopped dreaming about those far away places and tried to focus on making a living and being a responsible young man. I became active in church after a collegiate hiatus. I became gainfully employed. I bought a home and a dog and started a garden.
Good things, but my world became smaller. Even my Sabbaths covered familiar territory. They involved camping and hunting with my dog and traveling back to Wyoming. These were all good things and enough, it seems, to keep my drifting dreams at bay.
Then, I married a fellow dreamer. Together we read, "Dove" and "Mutant Message Down Under." We watched, "Lord of the Rings," and traveled to South Africa and spent a summer in Sitka. We dreamed dreams of going to Italy and Sweden and the Tibesti Mountains of Chad.
After a couple of years of gallivanting, we had children and settled down. The dreams of going to Italy were tabled for Legoland. The dreams of going to Sweden were put on hold for soccer games. The dreams of the Tibesti mountains began to gather dust with the World Book Encyclopedias.
We dropped anchor on our dreams.
Thusly moored, this prudent little notion of taking Sabbaths together as a family blew in from the surging sea. "It would bring us together," I thought. "It would help us to grow in our relationship with our Lord and Savior," I mused. It turns out this idea of Sabbath was God breathed and perilous. It turns out that our Lord is one who likes to let His hair down and get out on the open road, walk on water, and cast colorful worlds against the tapestry of infinite space.
As a result of our Sabbath experiment, there has been more time to dream. Our children have begun to show signs that they too have inherited the vagabond DNA. Our middle son wants to learn to surf in Hawaii. Our oldest son wants to eat Chinese food...in China. Our littlest son wants to drive monster trucks and be a police officer. My wife has started to talk about learning Italian and I have an almost insatiable desire to visit my college buddy in Kosrae...and kayak the Snake River in Jackson Hole...and learn to sail...and find that remote swimming hole in the Owyhees.
I've discovered that my DNA hasn't changed. It turns out that I can't change my spots. I am still prone to wander. Lord I feel it! And maybe that's okay. Maybe it is even good.
During these first few weeks of Sabbath, I've noticed a change in our family. There's more relief...but not in the sense of a celestial calm. By "relief" I mean more contrast in our lives. There are more contours to our dreams. And more color...more excitement and more joy. And yes, even more peace, though we've discovered that it is harder to keep up with the adventurous Jesus than the affluent Jones's. I believe that it is the Lord that dusted off these dreams. "Anchor's aweigh!" our Savior calls, "I am creating a new heavens and a new earth. Who's with me?" Deep calls to Deep. Maybe I have discovered just a little too late, that there is an inherent danger in Sabbath-keeping with dreamers.
Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.
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