Something Blogging and Marriage Have in Common

June 2, 2011 Daniel Harris

Today is my wife's birthday, and it's already been a good day even though it's had some funny pieces to it. First, she read the message that our two-year-old son wanted me to write on his behalf in her birthday card: "Thank you for my birthday." I'm not sure what he thought he meant by that, but he definitely owes her his gratitude his own birth.

The next interesting part of her birthday was that I was asked to play guitar and sing at a graveside funeral service this morning. I was happy to do so, and was very glad that she was willing to go with me, but this is certainly the first time that we have included attending the funeral of someone whom neither of us knew as part of a birthday celebration. I guess if a funeral is for remembering a life that is past and a birthday is for celebrating another year of a loved one being alive, we can find some meaningful connection between the two (but we still may not make it an annual tradition).

Then, since my wonderful in-laws are in town and offered to provide childcare so that the two of us could go out for a birthday meal, we went to the new Japanese steakhouse in town. It was a really nice place, and the food was even better. The funny part of our lunch, though, was that (because we don't have much of a Japanese population in West Texas) most of the chefs we saw in the building didn't look very natural in the Japanese outfits they were wearing. Ours was named Rodrigo. Regardless of his name or nationality, the food was good and we had a very good birthday lunch together.

With her birthday today, Mother's Day a few weeks ago, and all that she's going through being within a couple of weeks of our daughter's due date, I've certainly been thinking a lot about how much I appreciate about her, and I've noticed that blogging is helping me to learn much-needed lesson about marriage.

I have all kinds of thoughts that (in my opinion) can be turned in to great blog posts, but now that I've been putting effort into this blog for a while, I've noticed something consistent about all of those blog post ideas: the only ones that count for anything are the ones that I actually write and post. If I don't do that, I never get the joy of writing them and no one else can ever read them. Search engines have no way of indexing the content of the ideas in my head and bringing visitors to my blog just based on the thoughts that I've had; they can only bring visitors based on what I actually publish.

So here's the marriage application: I think it's common for men (especially introverted men) to fall into the habit of thinking about the things we appreciate about our wives, but not ever letting those words come out of our mouths. And since I think most men are like me in the sense of always being in favor of finding things to give ourselves credit for, we tend to believe that thinking that our wives are gorgeous, or that they're great mothers to our kids, or that they do so many things so well, or how much we enjoy being around them, or how thankful we are that they still haven't figured out that they could have married someone much better than us... we give ourselves good husband-credit for thinking those things without ever getting around to saying them.

In other words, if our marriages were blogs, most men like me wouldn't ever get around to publishing anything. Blog posts that I never publish can't help anyone, and neither do all of those things we think about why we love our wives so much help her at all, unless we get them out of our mouths so that she can hear them.

I know this isn't easy to do. I much prefer thinking to talking, but I've experimented with this lately. I recently listened to a very helpful audiobook called [amazon_link id="1590525728" target="_blank" ]For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women[/amazon_link] by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn, and one of the things it mentions is that men have something like a 30-second window from the occasion to take the thought that entered our minds until we need to let our wives hear that thought before it loses value for her. So, this morning as we were getting ready to leave for the birthday-funeral and she walked out looking celebratory in an appropriate way to attend the funeral of someone we didn't know, the thought entered my mind, "Wow, she looks nice." Because I've been experimenting with these things, I also had the wisdom within the 30-second window to say, "You look nice."

My conclusions after a couple of months of experimenting with this:

First, I still have way too many times that I hang on to a thought and it never crosses my mind to say it with my mouth. I really have no idea why this is the case. I guess it's just as true that new habits are hard to develop as old ones are to break. But, I do say things to her more often than I used to, and that has led to the second conclusion:

She likes it. If I analyze it thoroughly enough, this makes sense. She really wants to know she's loved, and I really want her to know that she's loved, so I want to further my experiment and be sure and tell her the next time that I notice how much I like her eyes or her smile (or other things), or how much I appreciate her doing any of the million things she does to keep our lives going pretty smoothly. I need to tell her when I think all of these kinds of good things about her.

And I need to publish the blog post.

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How to Not Get Kicked Out of My Parents' House

May 31, 2011 Daniel Harris

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[This is one of the posts telling a story from the life of my Dad. Click here to see the others.]

Regardless of who you are, if you ever wronged my father in some way, I don't know about it.

I've already mentioned this characteristic about him in my tribute from his funeral service, but it's so remarkable that I think it's worth telling again in a fuller way. One of the things that I came to admire most about him was that he literally never spoke negatively of other people (with the only possible exception being some of his comments about politicians he disagreed with). "Fuddy duddy" was about the most negative descriptor of a person that I ever heard come out of his mouth, and he never elaborated with anything else negative, so I'm still not sure what exactly Fuddy duddy means.

For longer than I've been alive, the hat rack pictured above has hung in my parents' house. My Mom found the piece in the center, and my Dad's mother, who was a very good woodworker, added the mirrors and other pieces to turn it into a hat rack. Think of how often we would have to hold our tongues (and often find it really hard to do so) if we were to live out its inscription: "No one who speaks ill of another in that other's absence is welcome beneath this friendly roof!"

Yet my Dad lived out the inscription and went a couple of steps further; it didn't matter if the person was absent or not, nor under what roof we found ourselves, he apparently never saw the value in speaking negatively of other people. In the days following his death, his youngest sister attested to this as she shared pictures of the two of them together as children (including the one below) and said, "I do not remember one angry, even irritated, word from him towards me, ever, which considering he was seven years older and I was undoubtedly a pest, is amazing."

Perhaps it was easier for my Dad than most people to avoid all negative talk toward or about others, because, well... he didn't say much of anything. But, I've also known quiet people whose only words were complaints, while my Dad had no problem telling about good things that others had done.

Remembering this about him has made me reflect on a couple of things: First, I'm very thankful for it, because he left me able to see the good in my relationships with people, even if they were people with whom he may have had some negative experience in the past. Like any good father, he had his ways of influencing who I spent time with and who I didn't, but he never felt the need to bad-mouth someone in order to accomplish that. So, if you were someone who had a difficulty with him at some point, and I now have a good relationship with you, we both owe him thanks. I likely would have had my self-defenses up against you if he had ever felt the need to criticize you.

And that leads to the next thought: Why do we criticize people, and how often is it really necessary, beneficial... or even, how often does it not do harm? The first reasoning that comes to mind is that we feel like we need to tell others what someone did in order to protect them from experiencing the same harm. This seems honorable at first, but I don't think that's actually our purpose as often as we might let ourselves believe.

Sure, we might be able to think of some drastic cases where that might apply: "Son, that man with the chainsaw is Bob. The last time Bob came over with a chainsaw he cut off my arm. He has terrible aim. Don't be friends with Bob." In cases like that (or cases less ridiculous, where some serious harm might be at stake), it would probably be the right thing to do to speak some negative words about Bob.

But when else is it actually the right thing to do? I think it's more likely that our negative words about others are usually our way of trying to indirectly damage them in some way without having to take responsibility for it. It doesn't take much imagination to think of harm that would be avoided in our world if we were able to cut off negativity toward others in the same way my Dad did and simply refuse to speak of it:

It would seriously cut down on our ability to harbor anger toward others. If someone has treated us badly and we tell others, we turn something that should stir compassion in us into a sore that we just allow to fester, and then all sorts of damage become possible. As Dallas Willard has said, "to cut the root of anger is to wither the tree of human evil."
It would also cut down on our prejudices against groups of people, because we would have many fewer things to hold agains those people, while we've never actually gotten to know any of them. This would be true whether those people are people of a different race, political party, social class, age, nationality, or even if they're Presbyterians. (That's a joke. Even if this post were on a completely different topic, I would still have nothing bad to say about Presbyterians.)
It would increase our ability to give a much-needed gift to others by letting them have a clean slate in a relationship. I remember once as a kid, like a moron I decided to join in with some other boys of making fun of a girl in our class one day. She couldn't hear us, but another boy near me said, "Hey, that's my sister." In later years, I came to be very good friends with the whole family. Thankfully he didn't relay my careless words and allowed me to have a clean slate in beginning new friendships with his family.

I'm sure you can think of other ways this would help us to harm others less and leave more room for good to be done.

But I can also think of one major problem: even if this habit of my Dad's sounds good to all of us, our mouths can be remarkably capable of letting things out before they pass through any filters we would like to have in place. So what's the answer?

Practice. Even in small things I can practice stirring compassion rather than harboring resentment: "Yes, it stinks that Bob just ate my piece of dessert, but he must be really hungry after using that chainsaw all day." I can also practice re-telling the good that people do: "You should really see how much better Bob's aim is getting. Just keep a good distance."

As we practice with the things that seemingly don't matter much, we'll find that it becomes easier to act like we intend to with the things that really do matter. Because my Dad had practiced this from the time he was a little boy, by the time I came along, it would have actually been difficult for him to come home and gripe about something someone did. Not passing it on was really easy.

So let's give it a shot: depending on how often each of us normally engage in of bad-mouthing (whether it's something you can remember doing once several years ago, or perhaps you consider it a hobby), let's set ourselves appropriate and attainable time limits to practice not doing so (maybe a 2 days, or a week, or 30 seconds), and see what happens.

Maybe repeating this to yourself will help: Don't be a Fuddy duddy.

A Prayer for Ascension Day (Years A,B,C)

May 30, 2011 Daniel Harris

By GFreihalter (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

[This is one of a series of Prayers for the Christian Year. To see the other posts, click here.]

Living, Loving Father,

You are the great king over all the earth. You sit on your holy throne and reign over us and over all the nations, and therefore we give You our praises and our songs of joy.

Lord, open our minds today so that we can understand Your word. Give us wisdom by Your Spirit, so that we may be intelligent and discerning in knowing You personally. Give us focused eyes and clear hearts, so that we can see exactly what it is that You are calling us to do, and help us to grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life that You have for Your followers.

And as we learn to walk in Your ways, we pray that You would enable us to be your witnesses, here in our own neighborhoods, in the other parts of our land, and to the ends of the earth, so that we may be tools bringing Your grace to all of our brothers and sisters around the world, that all may know the goodness of repenting of our sins and mercifully being granted forgiveness for the sake of Your beloved Son, and our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ.

It is He who loved us with His life and death, who was raised from the dead and seated at Your right hand, who now has charge over all and whose name is above every other name, now and for ever.

Until He comes back to us in the same way that He went up to sit at Your right hand, we, as His students, will continue to earnestly pray the prayer that He taught us, saying,

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are Yours now and for ever. Amen

Notes:

Ascension Day is this Thursday, forty days after Easter and ten days before Pentecost. This prayer is based on the readings for Ascension Day (which can be celebrated on Thursday or the following Sunday). The readings for the ascension are the same every year:

Acts 1:1-11: Luke's beginning to the book of Acts, which gives a more detailed account of the ascension from the one which concludes his gospel. (See today's gospel reading below.)
Psalm 47: A psalm of joyful praise to God, recognizing him as a great king above all the earth, who has "gone up" with a shout and sits on his holy throne.
Ephesians 1:15-23: Part of Paul's introduction to this letter to the Ephesians, in which conveys his prayer for them and describes how God's power was at work in Christ when he was raised from the dead and seated at his Father's right hand in heaven, having been given authority over all things.
Luke 24:44-53: Luke's conclusion to his gospel, recounting how Jesus opened his disciples minds to understand what the Scriptures said about him, promised to send them power from on high, then ascended into heaven.

Also, normally I base the prayers on these readings in the New Revised Standard Version. For the reading from Ephesians, I borrowed heavily from The Message.

Wesley's Sermon 21: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 1

May 29, 2011 Daniel Harris

A view to Capernaum from the Mount of Beatitude, where Jesus may have delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Photo by gugganij on Wikimedia [This is a post on one of John Wesley's Sermons as part of the Getting to Know John series. See the other posts here.]

"Above all, with what amazing love does the Son of God here reveal his Father's will to man!"

This sermon begins Wesley's classic series on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7). In the next thirteen sermons, he will move through the passages of this most famous teaching of Jesus. So, basically, we're about to begin a journey into the most influential sermon in history, being led by one of Christianity's most brilliant and influential leaders. It's probably worth seeing what he has to say, right?

Since this is the first sermon in this series on the Sermon, Wesley begins with an extended introduction to the Sermon on the Mount in general, before moving into the meaning of specific passages. He asks (and of course, answers) important questions about the context in which Jesus first gave the Sermon: What had happened to this point in Jesus' life? Who was this teacher? What is it that he's teaching? Whom was Jesus addressing? How does he teach?

Wesley then moves into the content of the Sermon, beginning as Jesus did, with the Beatitudes. He spends the remainder of the message examining the meaning of the first two Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3), and "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5:4).

Obviously, with as much as I value Wesley's theology, I think it's a worthy investment of my time to study what he says here, and part of his interpretation of the Beatitudes has already surprised me. He says that they are both a list of characteristics that are true to some degree of all God's children all the time, and that they are a progression that we go through in the Christian life (i.e., we must begin with poverty of spirit, then mourning, etc.). Until this point I've not been familiar with an interpretation of this passage that sees Jesus' Beatitudes as a process. It's interesting to see how he applies that idea to these first two, and will be interesting to see the same in the following passages.

Although that idea is new to me, the interpretation of the Beatitudes as a list of characteristics that we are to aspire to as Christians isn't new. This is the way most of us have been taught to understand this teaching of Jesus. It takes Jesus' description of the "poor in spirit" to mean those that are humble and know their sinfulness, then goes through the rest of the list describing characteristics of Jesus himself and of his true followers.

But, although I certainly want to dig into what Wesley has to say, I've come to disagree with this traditional and widespread interpretation. The reason for this is that Jesus does not say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, because they are poor in spirit," but "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." In other words, Jesus does not identify poverty of spirit, mourning, or any of the other conditions as the reason that anyone is blessed. Rather, he was turning on its head his day's understanding of blessedness. His hearers had never before been told that someone spiritually poor, or in a condition that caused them to mourn, could be blessed. But, because of him and the access to his Father's kingdom that was becoming available through him, everyone in the crowd could be blessed regardless of their condition.

My view of the Beatitudes has been shaped most of all by Dallas Willard, particularly in his masterpiece of a book, The Divine Conspiracy. After working through Wesley's remaining sermons on the Sermon, I'll post a comparison summary of his interpretation and Willard's.

Options for digging in further to this sermon by Wesley:

Download the pdf outline
Read the entire sermon with the ePub file
Read the entire text online here

Here is a list of all of Wesley's sermons in the series, and their corresponding passages:

Sermon 21: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 1 (Matthew 5:1-4)
Sermon 22: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 2 (Matthew 5:5-7, 21-32)
Sermon 23: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 3 (Matthew 5:8-12, 33-48)
Sermon 24: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 4 (Matthew 5:13-16)
Sermon 25: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 5 (Matthew 5:17-20)
Sermon 26: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 6 (Matthew 6:1-15)
Sermon 27: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 7 (Matthew 6:16-18)
Sermon 28: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 8 (Matthew 6:19-23)
Sermon 29: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 9 (Matthew 6:24-34)
Sermon 30: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 10 (Matthew 7:1-12)
Sermon 31: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 11 (Matthew 7:13-14)
Sermon 32: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 12 (Matthew 7:15-20)
Sermon 33: Upon Our Lord's Sermon On The Mount, Discourse 13 (Matthew 7:21-27)

A Prayer for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year A)

May 26, 2011 Daniel Harris

[This is one of a series of Prayers for the Christian Year. To see the other posts, click here.]

Living, Loving Father,

As Your people, whom You have given life, we bless You today. You have always been faithful to us, and so it is that today, in every corner of our world, we, Your people, offer You our highest praise.

You have been ever-faithful, breathing Your own life into us, and providing us with everything that we need. Yet we have not been kept from all difficulty; the suffering in our world is immense. Even if we are not those who have been in the fire, or right in the middle of the storm, at times we have all felt the flames, or had the sense that a river is sweeping us away while we are completely helpless. And as we pray these things, we are mindful of our brothers and sisters in our own neighborhoods, and in other parts of our country and our world whose difficulties and suffering are much greater than our own. Please comfort those who have lost everything at the hand of nature, or because of the senseless acts of others. As so many are hurting today, we realize that each and every day, many will suffer tremendously precisely because they have done right. Because they love You, as we do, many will give up everything, including their very lives, today.

All of these burdens can feel so heavy, as if we are being crushed. Yet You have promised us, and indeed we have experienced, that we never face these things alone. This is as true for the children abandoned in the streets of our world as it is for each of us today. You have not left us alone. You are not far from any of Your children. Although we come to prayer today to seek You, praying makes us aware that You have come seeking each of us.

Even in suffering, we realize that You are near. When we consider the life, death, and resurrection of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, we see One who knows suffering, who suffered tremendously once for all of us, so that we might be reconciled to You, so that we might love You and experience the joy of walking in Your commands, so that we might see You more clearly and be made clearer channels of Your grace to a desperate world.

You have heard us as we have prayed today, and we bless You. Even though so many things could be taken from us at any moment, Your steadfast love will never leave us. We see this most clearly in Jesus, who lived in You, and who invites us to live in Him as He lives in us through the Holy Spirit.

Therefore it is as Your beloved children and Jesus' beloved students that we pray again together the prayer that He taught us, saying,

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are Yours now and for ever. Amen

Notes:

The readings for this week, on which this prayer is based, are:

Acts 17:22-31: This is the sixth of eight weeks (from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday) when our reading that would normally come from the Old Testament comes instead from the Book of Acts. This passage is Paul's witness to the Greeks in Athens, identifying the one whom they worshipped as the "unknown god" as the creator of the world and all that it is in it, who is not far from us, and who raised Jesus from the dead.
Psalm 66:8-20: A song of praise to God for his faithfulness through intense trials, and a promise to keep God's commands.
1 Peter 3:13-22: This is the fifth of six consecutive readings from 1 Peter, which heavily emphasizes the life we are to live in light of Jesus’ resurrection. In this passage, Peter encourages his readers (who were likely suffering significantly) by reminding them of the blessing that is theirs since they were God's people suffering for doing God's will.
John 14:15-21: This is the third of four gospel readings from John during the Easter season. (Most of this year’s gospel readings come from Matthew) It is also the second of three that come from John’s account of Jesus’ last night with his disciples, after washing their feet and prior to his arrest. This week's passage follows immediately upon last week's reading, where Jesus told his disciples that he was going away and that he is the way. We read this week that Jesus assures his friends that as they keep his commands, the Holy Spirit ("Advocate/Counselor" and "Spirit of truth") will be in them, and will be the means of Christ himself being in them, after they are able to see him no longer.

(Ecumenical version of The Lord’s Prayer from The United Methodist Hymnal)

Something I Really Want, but Haven't Learned Yet

May 24, 2011 Daniel Harris

I first encountered Ruth Haley Barton's book, Sacred Rhythms, a few years ago. It's a great book (which is why I've included it on my Spiritual Formation Recommended Reading List), and is one of those few that is worth hanging on to over the years in order to read and re-read each of the chapters. As good as everything is that she covers in the book, one of the chapters immediately captivated my attention, imagination, and longing. In it she describes a practice (or, I've really come to appreciate her language of rhythms) that I've longed for all my life, even though I never knew I was longing for it until I read her book. I was already familiar with many of the other rhythms that she described, but this one seemed completely other-worldly to me, and I've deeply wanted to make it a part of my lifestyle since then. What is it that I want so badly? Sabbath.

Like most evangelical Christians my generation or younger, I didn't grow up practicing Sabbath, really had no idea that I could, or what doing so would be like. If you would have brought this up to me 15 years ago, I would have said, "Sabbath? I'm not Jewish." (This glib response completely ignores the fact that while it is true that I am not Jewish, the Jesus after whom I'm patterning my life was very Jewish and practiced the Sabbath, just as did everyone else who wrote the Scriptures which I would have told you were the ultimate authority in my Sabbath-less life.)

So if your first response to the thought of practicing Sabbath would be anything like mine was, I'd like to give you some assurance. If this post doesn't resonate with you, there's no need to panic, because I'm sure you'll still make the cut past the pearly gates without ever practicing Sabbath... but I think we should all still give it some consideration for this simple reason: it is a very rich gift from God that is very good for us. After all, it was the Teacher, Jesus, in the midst of redefining what the Sabbath was and was not, who said, "the Sabbath was made for humankind..." (Mark 2:27).

After reading more about Sabbath since that first encounter in Sacred Rhythms, it appears that many Christians (particularly in generations before mine) grew up with a culturally mandated version of the Sabbath which boiled down to meaning it was the day of the week when they couldn't do anything fun, as the focus was only on things not to do on the Sabbath. That's not very helpful, rich, nor good for us. I'm thankful that Ruth provided a very simplified but dependable framework for shaping what Sabbath could be for each of us, as she uses these three words to describe the things we should engage in on the Sabbath: rest, worship, and delight.

I'll let you read her teaching on it for yourself for further thoughts along each of those categories, but mostly for my own benefit I'd like to write out some of the things I would like to characterize my own practice of the Sabbath (together with my family, of course), as we seek to learn to experience the goodness of this gift of God to us, in no particular order:

I want to have one day each week when I am advertised to as little as possible. James Bryan Smith says that in an average day we receive 600 advertising messages! Even if we think we pay no attention to them, that much encouraged consumerism has to take its toll on our souls. Freeing myself from the majority of those 600 advertisements isn't easy, but it is simple: don't go places or do things that are likely to push a bunch of advertisements on me (stores, radio, TV, internet, etc., etc., etc.)
I want to have one day each week when my focus is intentionally on being grateful for the things I have already been given, and away from things I don't have but would like to get. I want to give thanks for always having been provided for, rather than having any concern about where the next provision will come from.
I love reading, but most of my reading has a feeling of accomplishment to it. I want to read on the Sabbath, but not to check any books off of my list or have any sort of "should do this" feeling to it. Instead, I'd love to just read things that are rich, simply because I'll like reading them (the first thing that comes to mind is The Chronicles of Narnia).
It's easy to let technology become rude and intrusive in our lives without ever noticing. I would love for my Sabbaths to be days when technology isn't given any implicit nor explicit permission to intrude. If there's some way that it can be helpful (like talking on Skype with friends or family), then great. Otherwise, I'll enjoy a day of freedom from iPhones, iPads, text messages, etc., etc., etc.
The days of my life when I feel the most fulfilled are the days when I have a sense of fully enjoying my family. If I'm not mentally in another place, but am able to revel in the gifts that my wife and son (and soon to be daughter) are to me, it's always a good day. I want my Sabbaths to be a weekly cultivation of enjoying each other.
I want to do something outside. Particularly as I've spent most of my working life inside buildings, sitting behind desks, etc., sometimes I find myself starved for being outside. On my Sabbaths, I want to see nature, because it reminds me both that God is much bigger than I am and also much more interested in every detail that makes our universe work.
I want to begin this day each week with a slow dinner with my family (and sometimes also with friends), when we can light candles to remind us of God's presence with us and passion for us and say things that we are grateful for, and when I can affirm to my wife and children the blessing that they are to me and ask for God's blessing upon every part of their lives.
I want to see the sunrise and/or the sunset. West Texas can be glorious two times every day, and I miss 99% of those times. No reason to miss them on the Sabbath.
Ruth puts rest first in her three categories, so I will love taking a nap.
I've really come to benefit from the rhythm of fixed-hour prayer (using a prayer guide to guide me at specific times of the day, such as morning, mid-day, evening, and night), and I'd love to have plenty of room to indulge in those prayers at any pace I want once per week.
If opportunities come up to enjoy being with friends in ways that work with things written above, I'm all for it. (i.e. Don't invite us to do something at the mall. If you have rocking chairs we can sit in... invite us. ...Okay, those two examples actually apply 7 days per week.)
No hurry allowed.
Realize that, on this day, if I'm doing nothing I'm doing what God most wants of me. What gets done before the Sabbath begins gets done, and what doesn't, doesn't. Christ's kingdom will in no way be at risk because of my 24 hours of un-productivity, and I need drastic reminders of that. You might need them too.

Any Sabbath veterans out there with suggestions? Or anyone at all with other things this makes you long for?

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