Nothing Must Be Done
On A Short and Simple Rule of Life
“Nothing must be done,” is my Rule of Life for the next 12-weeks. Starting today, and after 25 years of pastoral ministry, I am entering my first sabbatical. Before you say “congratulations,” as many others have, let me tell you I find this terrifying. My sabbatical comes with rules, the most terrifying rule is that not only will I not be given work, but I cannot work. Like, at all. On anything.
Sabbatical sounded like a good idea at first, and, most people, not really understanding what it is, are envious, thinking 12-weeks of no work sounds good. But sabbatical is not 12-weeks of no work. It’s 12-weeks of soul work. For me right now, soul work, to be done properly, means nothing must be done.
Nothing must be done has two clear meanings. The first is that of all the tasks I have no of them must be done. I can breathe. To-dos can wait. There are no deadlines. No sermons or articles or books to write. No pastoral calls. No information to bring to meetings and no one to meet with. And, thank God, no logging into ZOOM!
I wake up every morning without an agenda. The second meaning is that after a quarter-century of walking with others and pastoral care, I need space for nothing, and that, right now feels like a must.
Sabbath and sabbatical is about creating space. Slowing. Discovery. Sabbath is about why, starting in January, I left social media and entered into reading and watching stories. It’s about — in a world of busyness and distraction — rediscovering God and rediscovering self.
My sabbatical coach (yes, that’s a thing), asked me, “Who rest well that you admire?” I responded, “There’s no one who rest well that I admire.” He was stunned, but I was honest.
Rest, for folks like me, can too often be a sign of weakness and lack of discipline. The people I know who talk most about rest seem to always be resting and I have a hard time figuring what rigors they are rest from having done. Folks like me feast on the stories of John F. Kennedy who only slept four hours a night or folks like David Goggins who seem to never rest and never take time off. But for a while now I’ve known, that theirs are not the lives God intends, especially for those of us concerned with the soul. Constant striving is not how God designed humans to flourish.
My sabbatical coach also encouraged me to start sabbatical by reading Mark Buchanan’s The Rest of God. I was captivated (and devastated) by this:
“One measure for whether or not you’re rested enough—besides falling asleep in board meetings—is to ask yourself this: How much do I care about the things I care about? When we lose concern for people, both the lost and the found, for the bride of Christ, for friendship, for truth and beauty and goodness; when we cease to laugh when our children laugh (and instead yell at them to quiet down) or weep when our spouses weep (and instead wish they didn’t get so emotional); when we hear news of trouble among our neighbors and our first thought is that we hope it isn’t going to involve us—when we stop caring about the things we care about—that’s a signal we’re too busy. We have let ourselves be consumed by the things that feed the ego but starve the soul. Busyness kills the heart.”
Here’s my prayer: Since I was 18-years old I have been walking with people through injustice, divorces, child-rearing, death, heartache, and combined with the willful misunderstandings, criticisms, judgments, financial hardships, online and in-person derision, and other abuses which come with ministry, God never let me stop caring.
So, I suppose that means resting, nothing must be done. And it doesn’t mean that rest is only for me. It means rest for you, too.