Aligning with Grace

I still am moving slowly, seemingly stuck between dimensions and planes of existence, and even time... I had every intention of making several entries about my trip, but have not managed to do so... In my last entry I spoke of how my journey to Jerusalem transpired from one Sabbath to another, and this seems fitting, because the notion of keeping the Sabbath has come to dominate many of my conversations of late. Recently, in my prayer group, we discussed a need and longing for keeping the Sabbath. For the rector of the Church and her assistant, keeping the Sabbath means they must block out their Mondays, and shelter this time from a lot of the distractions that life offers us. We reminisced over a time in this country when on the Sabbath - that is to say Sunday for most of us - stores were closed, and most of us went to Church, read the paper, and enjoyed family time, punctuated by a lovely meal. As we enter into the celebrations of both Thanksgiving and the begin...

I move slowly, quietly, mindfully, and deliberately - after returning from the trip of a lifetime. I journeyed far and wide to Jerusalem, the Holy City, arriving on the Sabbath, and leaving it on the Sabbath, to return to my own city, on a long and lonely journey home... I arrive at a city that has shut down for the night. It is unusually quiet, but I do not know that it will not remain that way for very long... I travel to this city that somehow remains in suspended animation - out of place and and out of time - a city of contradictions - sacred to three faiths, all known as the People of the Book, all three quarreling with each other, like siblings and cousins that cannot get along... In the morning after our arrival, my two traveling companions and I make haste to the Old City, arriving at Jaffa Gate, passing the occasional Orthodox male in his kipa, a skullcap and Tallit, or prayer shawl - on his way to prayer. The city draws me in and devours me - it feels so fami...

Last night, I curled in bed with the book I am currently reading - An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith , by Barbara Brown Taylor , a former parish priest, who currently teaches spirituality. This book is delicious in every way - not one to be raced through - but one to be savored, and so I "tasted" the chapter "The Practice of Saying No." It begins by explaining the historical, cultural, and religious differences between keeping the Sabbath and the Christian practice of observing Sunday - and then explores the value of having one day a week where we say no to doing, and simply enjoy being. Taylor begins the chapter with this quote from Meister Eckhart: "God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting." A couple of pages into the chapter, she quotes the Swiss theologian Karl Barth : "A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity." Later, she refers to Abraham Heschel : "The first holy thing in ...