Earth Hour ... and Beyond

Last night we turned out for Earth Hour, literally. Husband and I had been reading about all the cities around the world that had committed to turn off their lights for sixty minutes as a symbolic act of reducing the effects of energy usage on our earth. We joined millions of people in turning off our lights at 8:00 and spending a quiet, glowing hour in candlelight and quietness.

Sometimes I think that marches for this and sit-ins for that seem so futile, particularly if they call on people to give up their own power and selfishness. People aren't much good at that. And I suppose that turning off the lights for an hour is also rather futile in the big picture. But it did help us to be aware in our own household, to make a little quiet sanctuary in the midst of all the ways we use energy around here, and to think about how we need to give the earth a bit of a rest from our never-ending consumerism.

There is, however, a bigger issue that I think most of us are missing. The restfulness and peace of one hour in darkness with a little bit of candlelight is something that we need for more than sixty minutes in a year. The bigger--and Biblical--concept, in my opinion, is a sabbath rest, in its broadest interpretation.

Hear me out.

In the Old Testament, God clearly asked his people to set aside one day, 24 hours, for rest. No work. Time to focus on the fact that they were created beings ("for the Lord made heaven and earth"). A call holiness. On the seventh day.

So what would it mean if we all took Sabbath seriously? What if we recognized that God created, and what if we treated each other and the earth with respect, as His creations? What if we took 24 hours with no work at all each week? What if we gave our bodies a rest from the incessant work, worry and self-protectiveness that we've become accustomed to in this fast-paced, hostile world? What if we gave our time over to pursuing Holiness for one 24-hour block of time? What if ...?

But it seems so futile. It seems futile because it interferes with our mad scramble to satisfy our own selfish desires. It interferes because there are values and behaviors that we don't want to give up. If interferes because we have habits or grudges or internal baggage to carry. It interferes because we'd be seen as weird. It interferes because caring for all creation means changing our entire worldview. It interferes because it's inconvenient and out of step with the rest of the world.

Even if that's what God told us to do.

I honestly do see Creation, and Worship, and Stewardship of the earth's resources, and Rest all connected together in the concept of Sabbath. That one Earth Hour was a little glimpse of what it could be, even for just two people in one house.