Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
It's sad that we need a book to remind us of the importance of scheduling time to rest and worship. But because we can work, shop, achieve, and otherwise stay busy every hour of every day of the week, we do. The statement, "I am so busy" has become a frighteningly common lament, according to author Wayne Muller. Our perpetual state of busyness represents a war on our natural rhythms that demand quiet and renewal in order to be emotionally, spiritually, and creatively fertile.
Honoring the Sabbath need not be a commitment to a specific day of the week, explains Muller. In fact, it can be a yearlong retreat or a morning walk--"anything that preserves a visceral experience of life-giving nourishment and rest."
Far more than an interesting concept, this is a good read. Each chapter is provocative and fluid, with topics such as "Fear of Rest," "Dormancy," and "The Way of Enough." At the end of his chapters, Muller offers stories, poems, or practices that speak to the themes of the Sabbath. --Gail Hudson
Book Description
It has become our standard greeting: "I'm so busy." Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, the author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live? shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal--a refuge for our souls.
Our relentless emphasis on success and productivity has become a form of violence, Muller says. We have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between effort and rest, doing and not doing. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance, longing for time with friends and family, longing for a moment to ourselves.
Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. This consecrated time, Muller affirms, is available to all of us, regardless of our spiritual tradition. We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a sabbath afternoon, a sabbath hour, a sabbath walk. Sabbath time is time off the wheel, time when we take our hand from the plow and allow the essential goodness of creation to nourish our souls.
With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness. In Sabbath, he has given us a revolutionary tool for cultivating those necessary human qualities that grow only with time: wisdom, courage, honesty, generosity, healing, and love.
Ingram
Minister Muller's book brings the spirit of Sabbath alive for people of all faiths--enabling them to reclaim peace, joy, and respite from their overworked, overcommitted lives.
From the Back Cover
"This is a book that may save your life. In a culture where few question that more is better, Sabbath offers a surprising direction for healing to anyone who has ever glimpsed emptiness at the heart of a busy and productive life."
--Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom
"This is a superb book--but more than superb, it is a necessary one. Wayne Muller's message is one of the wisest treatments of stress I have ever come across."
--Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit
"Wayne Muller's book is dangerous. You will read it, share it with your family, and your longing for a weekly day of pampering your souls will become a reality."
--Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
"Wayne Muller's call to remember the Sabbath is not only rich, wise and poetic, it may well be the only salvation for body and soul in a world gone crazy with busyness and stress."
--Joan Borysenko, author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and A Woman's Book of Life
"Wayne Muller has a remarkable ability to weave together the strands of different religious traditions to reveal how much they have in common."
--George W. Webber, President Emeritus, New York Theological Seminary
"Wayne Muller demonstrates with clarity and compassion that when we are given the space, the tools, and the permission to say no to the ever-increasing busyness that affects our lives, we find genuine rest and reconnection."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of A Heart as Wide as the World
About the Author
Wayne Muller is an ordained minister and therapist and founder of Bread for the Journey, an innovative organization serving families in need. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he is Senior Scholar at the Fetzer Institute and a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He also runs the Institute for Engaged Spirituality and gives lectures and retreats nationwide. He is the author of Legacy of the Heart, a New York Times bestseller, and How, Then, Shall We Live? He lives with his family in northern California. |
