Christmas Eve 2021 sits in my memory as both holy and heavy. I remember seeking to celebrate the birth of Christ with my family\u2014candles lit, dinner on the table, a fragile quiet in the house\u2014only hours after sitting in a hospital room where I was with someone when they died from COVID-19. I had filmed a Christmas Eve message earlier that day, my pastoral voice steady even as my soul trembled. Grief, fatigue, joy, and hope coursed together through my body. It was all there at once: incarnation and loss, light and weariness. My body felt the collision of ministry and mortality in a way that no sermon ever could.<\/p>\n
Even though much of the world had stopped, the work of pastoral ministry went into overdrive. Adapting to new leadership styles, navigating livestream technology, and guiding our church leadership through mask mandates and safety decisions weren\u2019t optional; they demanded constant engagement. Ministry became crisis management. At home, the same tension played out in miniature: trying to create warmth and joy for our family while juggling online school, social disconnection, and the subtle grief of a life on pause. I wanted to embody hope for others, but underneath, I was restless. Even in stillness, my soul kept working.<\/p>\n
Reading Nicholas and Sheila Wise Rowe\u2019s insight that \u201cover-functioning is often a trauma response\u2014the nervous system\u2019s way of staying safe by staying active\u201d felt uncomfortably familiar. I realized that\u2019s exactly how I cope with trauma. When pain surfaces, I move faster. I lean into adrenaline and accomplishment as if productivity could protect me. The \u201calways-on\u201d mentality becomes my armor, useful in crisis but devastating over time. It keeps me from feeling what\u2019s really happening. Eventually, the body starts to protest through chronic stress, fatigue, and the quiet suspicion that I\u2019ve confused faithfulness with over-responsibility.<\/p>\n
The Rowes describe rest as a courageous act, allowing our bodies and souls to remember that God is God and we are not. That courage, for me, begins with simply stopping. When I practice Sabbath, one of the most important rhythms is to be still. For two or three hours I sit on the couch without a plan. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I pray or write. It\u2019s not efficient, and that\u2019s the point. In those hours my body tells the truth my mind tries to outrun. Wendell Berry captures it perfectly:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mind that comes to rest is tended in ways it cannot intend.<\/em> This stopping is the first movement in my Sabbath rhythm of STOP, REST, PRAY, and PLAY\u2014an embodied retraining of the nervous system to trust grace instead of adrenaline.<\/p>\n Justin Whitmel Earley, in his new book writes The Body Teaches the Soul.<\/i>\u00a0His words remind me that healing doesn\u2019t begin in the abstract\u2014it starts in our actual skin and bones. We are not disembodied spirits trying to think our way to peace; we are integrated beings who heal through what we practice.<\/p>\n Marva Dawn echoes this truth in Keeping the Sabbath Wholly<\/em> when she describes Sabbath as a time to cease, rest, embrace, and feast. The practices of embracing and feasting\u2014touching hands, breaking bread, laughing around a table\u2014are not extras. They are physical acts of restoration. Trauma isolates and fragments us; shared meals and friendship re-member us, stitching our humanity back together. In these embodied practices, I sense the Spirit quietly mending what hurry and over-functioning have torn apart.<\/p>\n In my Sabbath for Everyone<\/em> doctoral project, I\u2019ve organized Sabbath practice around four movements\u2014STOP, REST, PRAY, and PLAY. These rhythms echo Dawn\u2019s invitation and draw us into connection with both God and one another. Each movement is deeply relational: we stop striving so we can truly see others; we rest to remember that our worth is secure; we pray to realign our desires; and we play to rediscover joy.<\/p>\n After the pandemic, I\u2019ve come to see that even a global shutdown doesn\u2019t create real rest. If anything, the forced stop of COVID merely agitated and exposed how desperate we are for a deeper rest\u2014the kind that only God\u2019s Spirit can give. The Sabbath movements become a pathway for that deeper renewal, an embodied practice through which the soul learns to breathe again.<\/p>\n In Scripture, God gives his people the Ten Commandments AFTER<\/em> bringing them out of Egypt. Freedom comes first; formation follows. The commands are not rules to earn belonging but invitations to reflect God\u2019s character\u2014to live as His segollah<\/em>, His treasured ambassadors in the world. And woven into that identity is the command to rest.<\/p>\n “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles\u2019 wings and brought you to myself.<\/span>\u00a0Now if you obey me fully\u00a0and keep my covenant,\u00a0then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession<\/span>.\u00a0Although the whole earth\u00a0is mine,<\/span>\u00a0you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”-Exodus 19:4-6<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Rest is not optional\u2014it\u2019s the embodied reminder that we are no longer slaves to production. Sabbath tells the truth about freedom. Yet I\u2019m not convinced we, as pastors or as churches, have really processed what we endured during the pandemic. We adapted, innovated, and survived, but have we healed? The hyper-vigilance of those years, the attachment to technology, the loss and constant change within our communities, they still hum beneath the surface.<\/p>\n What if Sabbath could become the space where those things begin to surface and unwind? What if instead of masking our pain with consumerism or filling our calendars with new activity, we allowed rest to reveal what needs to be restored? Sabbath might be the very environment where the Spirit helps us unpack what our bodies and souls have carried for far too long.<\/p>\n When Sabbath begins each week, I start to notice just how tight and tired I am. My shoulders ache, my thoughts race, and I realize how much I\u2019ve been carrying. I can almost feel where I\u2019ve strained against Jesus\u2019 easy yoke. In those first quiet moments, the Holy Spirit begins a gentle kind of repair\u2014showing me where I\u2019ve tried to live in my own strength and inviting me back to grace.<\/p>\n Slowly, through silence, laughter, prayer, and presence, I begin to experience what Eugene Peterson called \u201cthe unforced rhythms of grace.\u201d It\u2019s not instant. Healing never is. But week after week, Sabbath becomes the place where trauma loosens its grip and love takes root again.<\/p>\n Sabbath isn\u2019t just recovery from work; it\u2019s recovery from trauma. It\u2019s how leaders, pastors, and communities remember that we are not what we produce, and that rest is a witness to the One who holds all things together\u2014even when we finally stop.<\/p>\n \u201cCome to me, all you who are weary and burdened,\u201d Jesus says, \u201cand I will give you rest.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Perhaps this is the ongoing invitation for the post-pandemic church: to let our bodies and souls keep the Sabbath instead of the score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christmas Eve 2021 sits in my memory as both holy and heavy. I remember seeking to celebrate the birth of Christ with my family\u2014candles lit, dinner on the table, a fragile quiet in the house\u2014only hours after sitting in a hospital room where I was with someone when they died from COVID-19. I had filmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3504],"class_list":["post-42567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-rowe","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42568,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42567\/revisions\/42568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIs borne, preserved, and comprehended by what it cannot comprehend.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n