Sundown Friday

The sundown last Friday over the Puget SoundFriday sundown has always started a day of rest for me. Whether or not I actually managed to physically rest has been a matter of varying success, but all my life the sunset on Friday night has signaled a time at least of mental rest--a break from the activities of the week.

I've tried to explain the preciousness of this before, but I'm not sure people understand it unless they've experienced it over a span of time. It's hard for me to consider life without a sabbath. It would feel to me like a light had gone out, like I had no access to the resources to deal with the challenges and discouragements of life.

I was taught, from the time I was a small child, that at sundown Friday the work and regular activities of the week cease and we enter holy time, as in obedience to a command, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." It was not just our own choice to cease work, but we knew as surely as there was a command to not kill and to honor our parents, there was also the directive about the seventh day: "In it, thou shalt not do any work."

How paradoxical that a boundary around this holy time has had such power to set me free.

I am free of work--I'm simply not allowed to do it. No budgets, no committee meetings, no appointments with colleagues to work through problems, no preparation for presentations, nuthin'! I'm free of even worrying about that work--ceasing work means a commitment to ceasing my thoughts about it. I'm free of the separation that my work world puts between me and Husband during the week--we spend this day of rest together. I'm free of my usual pell-mell careening through an over-scheduled day. I'm free of studying anything that does not enrich my relationships to God others. I'm free of the distracting clutter and to-do lists of daily life: shopping, watching TV, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, yard work, paying the bills.

I have what relatively few people in America have on a weekly basis: a whole, 24-hour day of rest. A luxurious time to worship, read, get out into nature, interact with people who are dear to me, write, listen to good music, think deeply, and dream.

This is why Friday sundown is my very favorite time of every week. The traditions of my childhood and adolescent years always bring this hymn to mind as I observe the setting of the sun on Friday evening:

Day is dying in the west;
Heaven is touching earth with rest.
Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight
Through all the skies.

Chorus:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts!
Heaven and earth are full of thee!
Heaven and earth are praising thee
Oh Lord most High.

Lord of Life, beneath the dome
Of the universe, thy home,
Gather us, who seek thy face,
To the fold of thy embrace,
For thou art nigh.

While the deepening shadows fall,
Heart of love enfolding all
Through the glory and the grace
Of the stars that veil thy face,
Our hearts ascend.

When forever from our sight
Pass the stars, the day, the night
Lord of angels, on our eyes
Let eternal morning rise
And shadows end.