Finding the Sacred In Everyday Life

By Nancy Ballinger 

The Summer Day

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver

Last month, for my 60th birthday, I did my first Tandem skydive.  Yes, it's true. I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane two miles above good old terra firma to freefall 120 mph for a minute, then float for several more minutes before safely reaching the ground.  I have wanted to jump out of an airplane (with a parachute) for as long as I can remember. So when I turned sixty in January that is what I requested for my birthday present. Several friends think I'm crazy. They are probably right, but I want to tell you . . . I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!!

For a recovering adrenaline junkie, leaping out of an airplane harnessed to a professional skydiver was a perfect high. Reflecting upon it, I later realized it is also an ideal metaphor for the way I, like many people, have lived much of my adult life. It seems I was in freefall and moving at break-neck speed for about 35 years. PHEW!

Here is how it happened. At age 20 I jumped with both feet into what I saw as adulthood. It was as if someone flipped a switch one day and I was ON.  I married and started college at 20. One year later, I had my daughter, then my son two years later.  I got a Bachelors of Science degree at 26, and Masters of Psychology at 30. Still on the fast track I got licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist at 33, a grueling and labor-intensive experience at it's best. Immediately upon licensure I began my counseling and teaching career.  It seems like once I got started I didn't know how to slow down, open my parachute, and enjoy the view.

Nothing in my world during this time suggested slowing down was possible, or even a good idea or goal. So, typically, while I was writing a paper for my college class, I was also preparing dinner and planning the family camping trip for the weekend.  Fortunately, grocery stores and K-Marts were open 24 hours, so I could shop in the middle of the night if necessary. There were always so many kudos in the 1970's for being a college student and then later a working mom who seemed to be able to do and have it all. Even after my kids grew up, when I could have possibly taken a breather, I only became more involved in a career that I loved. My identity became wrapped up in always being busy and doing and achieving more.

"What I want is to leap out of this personality and then sit apart from that leaping."

                                                               Rumi

800 years ago, when Rumi suggested I might want to leap out of my personality, I suspect he didn't have skydiving in mind.  Rather, like a kind uncle, I can hear him saying in this verse: "My dear, take a break and enjoy a little respite from it all. Relax, sit apart from the doing and feel the sacredness in life . . . find some Sabbath time."

The Sabbath time I'm imagining Uncle suggesting—although it can be—is not necessarily a day, or a religious obligation. It is not another should in life that we need to wedge into an already busy schedule, but rather a way of being where we stop and take time to refresh and renew our spirit. During Sabbath time we pull the cord, let our parachute open, and realize there is a universal life force that supports us—if we allow it. It is a way of thinking, feeling, and being that weaves a rhythm of sacredness into our busy lives.  It is slowing down and experiencing a generosity of spirit and joy in living where what is lacking is complete.  Limited time becomes expansive time. What is cramped becomes spacious and what is complex simple.

I participated in my first Sabbath celebration one Friday evening at the home of some dear friends nearly fifteen years ago. As the candles were lit and prayers began, I knew I had entered sacred time and could leave the work I had done—and left undone—behind.

Almost immediately my husband Ron and I began to create a Sabbath ritual for ourselves that included a weekly renewal of our marriage vows.  Although we are not Jewish, we chose Friday night at sunset to celebrate our Sabbath ritual as a way to end our workweek and pause to appreciate our many blessings.  We have practiced Sabbath in hotels, restaurants, and while camping. We have shared Sabbath with family and friends in our home and in our spiritual community.  The longer we observe a Sabbath, the more we feel the sacred presence at the heart of who we are and what we do.

The greatest benefit for me has been learning to really, truly STOP. That woman who hit the ground running at twenty is still in me at sixty. As my understanding of the true meaning of Sabbath grows and deepens, I realize that it is a state of mind that I can step into throughout the week and often during my day by simply being completely present and grateful in the moment.

As with meditation we find the really tangible results of practicing Sabbath in our daily life. Sabbath creates a rhythm that invites more connection to the seasons in nature around us, and the life cycle. As we feel the harmony of life we move from the unrelenting pressure to produce and addiction to achieving, and enjoy just being. Without stopping, resting, and reflecting, we can get lost in doing and loose perspective, direction, creativity, and meaning in our labors. When habitual, compulsive behavior goes unexamined, we feel more and more adrenaline-produced stress. Until we pause to reflect, we don't see other options to being ON all the time.  Creativity requires spaciousness, playfulness, and time of reflection to allow new ideas to emerge. Within the stillness of Sabbath time, our unrelenting ego can take a break and acknowledge that life has its own pattern and plan and we are a part of it.

For me Sabbath time begins every Friday evening when I set aside my work, not because it's done, but because I choose to stop and appreciate the week that has gone before and the week yet to come.  It continues through my week in mini-Sabbath moments that may include, but are not limited to, playing the piano, gardening, snuggling a few extra minutes under the covers with my husband in the morning, singing in the shower, having tea with a friend, lighting a candle, or cutting flowers and arranging them on my altar or kitchen table - each offered as a prayer of gratitude for the preciousness of the moment.

Mary Oliver expresses the simplicity of Sabbath time when she writes:

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

I invite you to flip the switch from ON to OFF and enjoy the beauty of your days, the seasons of your life, and the blessings you have been given. 

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Sunday Sacred Celebrations
Join us in an interfaith worship gathering
1st Sunday of each month - 10:00 a.m.
Vegetarian potluck 11:15
November 7, 2010
"Honoring our Ancestors"

December 5, 2010
Join us in an interfaith worship gathering
10:00 a.m.
Vegetarian potluck follows
All warmly welcome
Visit our website for more information.
Awakening Interfaith

If you are looking for a loving, safe place to find the sacred in everyday life, Reverend Nancy Ballinger offers spiritual guidance counseling. With over 20 years as a licensed marriage and family therapist and studies in Eastern and Western philosophies she brings a unique, open perspective to her counseling. Sliding scale fee.

Rufous Hummingbird image on banner by Mike Baird.