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A Sacred Journey

practicing pilgrimage at home and abroad

Easter isn’t over yet! Why you should celebrate all 50 days…

Like Christmas, Easter is not simply a day but a season.

Lasting fifty days, the season of Easter, also known as Eastertide, is a time for celebrating new life. After journeying with discipline and devotion through our own desert-places during Lent and walking alongside Christ through the realms of darkness, uncertainty, and betrayal evoked during Holy Week and the Triduum, the light of Easter morning brings the assurance of resurrection and redemption.

As the earth bursts with new life around us and the day grows longer than the night, we are reminded of the significance of the process of metamorphosis to the spiritual journey. We must surrender what is old so that we might be made new. Without it, there would be no transformation. It is this truth that we savor and celebrate during the fifty days of Easter.

While Easter is the oldest and most significant feast in the Christian church, however, it begins not with the sounds of celebration, but in the quiet corners between longing and liberation. Christ’s resurrection isn’t a triumphant event proclaimed with fanfare so that all might know of his return, but rather a mystical visitation to those who remained faithful and had eyes to see.

Because we, too, know of the redemption that awaits, we are not fully disheartened by the darkness faced during Holy Week because it is death that gives resurrection its meaning. Instead, we inhabit the hours leading up to Easter with patience, awareness, and anticipation, keeping vigil as we wait for the appearance of the risen Christ. In the final leg of our communal journey along the path of the passion of Christ that began during Holy week, we recount the stories that led to the coming of Christ and progress toward the moment in which we can finally declare, “He is Risen!”

This is the proclamation of Easter and the manifesto of the season to come. Just as we were invited during Holy Week to enter into darkness and contemplate how we have in our own ways crucified Christ, we now are invited to live in the resurrection as we celebrate the risen Christ and honor the things that bring us new life, both big and small.

For fifty days we are called to view all of life through the lens of a Sunday feast, dwelling in the abundance of the kingdom of God as we name and celebrate our places of resurrection. These places of life serve as guideposts for the journey, for they are where we continue to encounter Christ—the way, the truth, and the life, and the pathway to the Divine—on our journey of awakening.

The invitation of Eastertide, then, is to look for these guideposts in everyday life and lean into them as we seek to live out and celebrate the kingdom of God and the renewal that it brings.

This is an excerpt from the Sacred Seasons perpetual liturgical wall calendar. Let it guide you through the fifty days of Eastertide and the rest of the liturgical seasons year after year! Available in the Journey Shop »

PS: 25 ways to celebrate Life this Easter Season plus more posts on Easter.

Comfy, Cozy Hygge: A Danish Pilgrimage Right at Home

If you’re an avid blog reader, it’s likely you’ve heard of the Danish tradition of hygge over the past year.

Pronounced “hoo-gah” (its adjective is even better: hyggeligt, pronounced “hoo-gah-lee”), hygge can translate to “cozy,” and who doesn’t love that? It especially is attractive in the cold winter months. Multiple books have come out on the subject just this year, and even the New York Times has caught on to the trend.

read more »

Sacred Ordinary Days Podcast, S1|E11: Eastertide + Sabbath

Sacred Ordinary Days Podcast

For our final conversation during the season of Eastertide, Jenn and I sat down to explore one of my favorite spiritual practices: sabbath.

Because we’ve focused on everyday practices or practices centered on specific holidays or seasons so far on the Sacred Ordinary Days podcast, the practice of sabbath hasn’t come up much in our conversations. However, it’s undoubtedly the practice that has shaped me most over the past few years and continues to do so each time my sabbath day rolls around as well as in the days that follow as the gifts of sabbath find their way into my everyday life.

Learn more about why sabbath is meaningful to me in today’s new Sacred Ordinary Days podcast episode as well as what my practice looks like and, of course, how sabbath connects with the season of Eastertide. Listen/download below or through iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and catch up on past episodes here. And if you like what you hear, would you mind sharing it with a friend and leaving a review? Here’s how.

SHOW NOTES

Sabbath by Dan Allender (part of The Ancient Practices series)
Even God Rested by Kim Thomas
Sabbath as Resistance by Walter Brueggermann

More posts on sabbath from the archives, as well as its pilgrim equivalent, sabbatical »

GO FURTHER

Do you practice sabbath? How do you cease and feast?

Let us know in the Sacred Ordinary Days Tribe Facebook group or on social media using the hashtag #sacredordinarydays.

Just one month until our Sacred Ordinary Days retreat! Join us in Waco, TX, over Memorial Day Weekend for feasting, fellowship, spiritual practice, and conversation. Space is limited! Learn more and register »

Our Sacred Ordinary Days retreat begins one month from today! Join us in Waco, TX, over Memorial Day Weekend for feasting, fellowship, spiritual practice, and conversation. Space is limited! Learn more and register »

Create a Sabbatical Just for You

Create a Sabbatical Just for You » https://asacredjourney.net

This past Monday was Labor Day in the US, and while to most it means a three-day weekend and signals the end of summer and the start of a new school year, I like to think of it liturgically.

No, no—you haven’t missed the declaration of Labor Day as the latest feast day during Vatican III. Even though Labor Day is only part of our cultural calendar (though I still have high hopes), when approached with intention it can offer us a unique invitation to deepen our spiritual journey as we focus on rhythms of labor and rest both in our world and in our everyday lives. After all, even God rested.

Speaking of which, there is, of course, the invitation to rest one day each week, modeled after the Divine’s resting on the seventh day of creation. These regular rhythms of sabbath are a call to cease and feast—a spiritual practice that is both challenging and rewarding in today’s culture.

There are times, though, when ceasing and feasting isn’t enough—at least for one day. Culturally, we refer to these seasons as a vacation or a leave of absence. However, just like a Saturday or Sunday each weekend, with a little intention, these seasons of rest and renewal can become so much more.

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Cease and Feast: Why You Should Practice Sabbath

This post originally appeared last year around Labor Day in the US (which happens to be today), but I thought I’d share it again as a reminder to take some time to cease and feast. If you have the day off today, I hope there’s plenty of room for rest and delight! -Lacy

sabbath-post

When I was in graduate school, I took a class all about Sabbath.

One of the assignments was to practice sabbath in three ways: one with a friend, another with someone who is a bit foreign to the practice, and one in solitude.

My Sabbath with a friend was spent with my dear friend Katie. During that day we shared some of the best things we had in common—we watched David Whyte speak at the Search for Meaning Festival, perused bookstores to our heart’s content, ate lunch out, took a walk around the nearby lake, and sipped hot tea as we talked about life. Though we had lived together previously, this was the first day we had spent entirely together simply enjoying ourselves, and it opened us up to deeper relationship.

As for the Sabbath with someone foreign to the practice, I instantly knew my ideal companion (or victim, depending on just how hard it would be). My dad knows how to be productive more than anyone I know. Consequently this means that he rests less than anyone I know. Even his sleeping is done in a productive manner, so I don’t count it.

I knew a day without productivity for my dad was going to be a difficult one, so I brought my husband in for personal support. Ironically, though, I realized that ensuring that my dad had a Sabbath experience meant that I was not having one at all. And so, I too had to let go of my addiction to productivity, which in this case was a vision of a productive Sabbath experience for my dad. I know—an oxymoron, right? (The productive/Sabbath part, not the Sabbath/dad part, but also maybe just a bit.)

As it turns out, I ended up doing a lot of things with my dad that day that I hadn’t done in a long time, and even some things that we had never done at all. There were a few struggles on both ends, certainly, but we made it through. When we let him off the hook early around 5pm, I left feeling that it was a good and surprising experience. (No word yet on whether he’s attempted a Sabbath again.)

The final part of the assignment—my Sabbath in solitude—turned out to be one of my favorite days in Seattle (quite akin to my envisioned ideal scenario described a few weeks ago here—it can be recreated after all!). It was New Year’s Eve, and I began the morning traipsing through my favorite place in Seattle, Pike Place Market, and then lingered over coffee and a chocolate croissant at Le Pichet for nearly two hours as I journaled, reflecting over and celebrating the year gone by.

I then stopped into the Seattle Art Museum, sampled some salted caramels at Fran’s across the street (the absolute best), grabbed a slice of pizza at the Italian delicatessen, and took it home where I spent the afternoon reading magazines, dreaming about an upcoming trip abroad, and drinking tea. It was truly heavenly.

But I never would have had that experience without the boundaries of Sabbath.

Outside of the confines of Sabbath productivity reigns, distractions beckon, and there is always at least one more thing I could get done. These are things to work on in their own right (perhaps a better word than “work” would be more appropriate here), but Sabbath is an opportunity to intentionally pause for a while, say “all is good,” and to celebrate that goodness in the way our hearts know best.

sabbath-post-2

Sabbath, of course, finds its roots in the seventh day of creation. It’s on the seventh day, we’re told, that God rested after all the work of creating was done. But in his book Sabbath, Dan Allender emphasizes that God did not need rest on the seventh day; rather, God spent the time delighting in the newly created world.

Kim Thomas, who wrote Even God Rested, describes the Divine’s action on the seventh day—and thus the model for Sabbath as well—as ceasing and feasting.

I love that.

Sabbath is a practice to pause and remember what was intended and is written on our hearts, what we search for as pilgrims, and what is to come when our essential selves are set free and we are fully united with God. It is a time to cease our everyday tasks and productivity—to cease even our sorrow or worrying—and to feast on love, on life, and on the goodness of the Divine. It is a conscious creation of a time and space that is Sacred.

God emphasizes this by telling the Israelites to “keep it holy” when practicing Sabbath. To be “holy” is, of course, to be “set apart.” Dan continues in Sabbath to say this about the holy:

“The holy comes in a moment when we are captured by beauty,
and a dance of delight swirls us beyond the moment to taste
the expanse of eternity in, around, and before us.”

This is what practicing Sabbath is all about—ceasing from our everyday and being “captured by beauty.” It’s about feasting on our delights, our relationships, our blessings, and what is good. And when we do this we are able to “taste the expanse of eternity,” we’re able to touch a bit of heaven, and we’re able to experience Sacred Encounter.

Today is Labor Day in the United States, a federal holiday that takes place each year on the first Monday of September. Labor Day was originally established over one hundred years ago to honor workers, giving them a day off from their labor and a chance to celebrate and be celebrated (thanks Wikipedia). These days it is considered a sign of the end of summer, offering a three day weekend when many families head to the lake or the beach one last time. Those staying at home might consider it as one more day to get some things done.

However, perhaps there is no better day to begin practicing Sabbath than on Labor Day—a gift of sorts in the calendar year. It’s a day off work with no Sunday services to attend or Saturday errands to run—a day that was originally created for us pause from work and to celebrate.

“Sabbath is a practice to pause and remember what was intended
and is written on our hearts, what we search for as pilgrims,
and what is to come when our essential selves
are set free and we are fully united with God.”

I know I’ll be ceasing and feasting. What about you?

GO FURTHER…

Have you ever taken a day of Sabbath? What did you cease from and feast on? What was difficult about it, and what brought great relief? Leave your response to the questions or the post in the comments. (Or share your Labor day plans!)

Hi! I’m Lacy—your guide here at A Sacred Journey and a lover of food, books, spirituality, growing and making things, far-off places and lovely spaces. More »

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