"Sabbath Sense offers a way to take back our time and take care of our souls — one moment at a time. The focus is on spiritual pauses, not organized-religion-designated days. The sense of Sabbath lies in the moment, any moment that actively includes the presence of God or Spirit. Such moments can include walking, gardening, homemaking, writing — any activity that steals time back from the chaos of a hectic world. Sharing grace at meals, loving the dishes we are wiping, praying with children, meditating, or climbing a weekly mountain — each are rituals that have the potential of unifying our fragmented days and time.
"The fragmentation of our minutes and hours is largely why we don't feel we have enough time. When time is broken up into little parts, rather than gathered together into larger ones, it feels too heavy. It loses its shape and its levity. When we ritualize the chaos of modern life, it creates an opening for Sabbath. Rituals keep time from becoming all of the same anxious pace and piece. Rituals separate duty and desire. They allow for leisure, so well-defined long ago as that which we choose rather than that which we must do. Rituals can even include such unexpected things as keeping house. Traditional women were not wrong in hanging their wash out every Monday. They were into something the two-career family has lost — ritualizing time so that it can become expansive.
"When people today say 'my house is a mess,' they are usually not kidding. Women suffer particularly around this 'failure' to keep their homes 'up.' Yet even something as simple as a decluttered house can bring a sense of Sabbath. Interior decoration can have a spiritual tilt. Mantels and rocking chairs become places to encounter Spirit. Floral displays in summer can slow time down. Rock gardens in winter can be places of genuine repose. Sabbath moments may be found, informally, in any number of activities, each done in a nearly Benedictine way that honors setting the table as much as any mass. Each path to Sabbath prizes solitude and gives permission to the Inner Hermit in every person. Each takes a few minutes out of full days to bow or nod in a spiritual direction."