Travis West has written the book on Sabbath that we need right now.
And by “we” I mean all of us–the busy, the tired, the worn out, the rested, the energized, and the ready. Because this book isn’t just about who has an abundance of resources to get them through the day, or who is making sure they are getting their “me time”. This book is about a different relationship with the theology and posture of the Sabbath, because, as West notes, Sabbath is about everything all the time. As West says, “Sabbath is not content to exist as an isolated event…rather, a Sabbath posture links the values cultivated on a Sabbath day to how we show up to the rest of our lives” (21). Some of us, traveling and “travail-ing” through the end of school years, busy work seasons, or simply living in our current moment, may scoff that such a posture could be possible. Or, we may be left wondering how we might get from here–where we find ourselves–to there–living a Sabbath life. To tackle that question, West is the perfect guide for a journey into what it means to encounter Sabbath for the first time, or to revisit an idea that may have shaped our lazy Sunday afternoons growing up.
Dr. West begins his book in a way that some who feel leery about one more book about Sabbath may need it to begin–with vulnerability. West tells a story of his own life and his marriage that serves as a way to invite the reader into the format of the book. In recounting his wife’s illness and his striving to earn and provide, he lays out the pattern of “orientation, disorientation, and reorientation” to categorize the Sabbath aspects he invites us to consider–Work, Time, Community, and Creation. In this exploration of Sabbath, West offers a simple categorical approach to a subject that can seem so spiritually profound. For all Sabbath’s loftiness, West makes Sabbath feel approachable, even playful. The combination of his playfulness and vulnerability is this book’s real magic. He is able to shepherd the reader as we encounter concepts of Sabbath that feel like they can be done. West also bridges the gap for the reader by citing and interacting with giants of Sabbath thinking like Brueggemann and Heschel, while also using moments from his own life, which never feel mapped on or tokenized but come from a place of raw yearning for the reader to meet with him in a Sabbath posture.
This Sabbath posture that West lays out for us is about repairing our relationships with work, with time, with community, and with creation. Whether it is the practice of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) or thinking about our food practices differently, everything about Sabbath is an articulation of the relationships that we have and an invitation to slow down long enough to acknowledge those relationships and, in our acknowledgement, also develop practices to delight in them.
In his section on time, for instance, West pulls out tropes of time: time is a line, time is a block, time is money. He writes that we need to change our relationship to time to take the Sabbath posture. West then leads us to three alternative metaphors for time that can help us reframe our understanding of time: Time is a flower in which we continue to draw back into the center of Sabbath and go out into the world. Time is a labyrinth which invites deliberate movement and breaks us out of a straight line sense of progress or achievement. And, finally, time is a rowboat, which invites us to a past we can see and a future we cannot. These metaphors call us to see time as an encounter–an encounter with God, with self, with others, with the natural world. West argues that when we change our relationship with time, all our other relationships will also change. Ultimately, this reorientation invites us to see that in a Sabbath posture, time is love. He writes, “The Sabbath’s orientation toward encounter invites us to explore how we can reconnect our experiences of time with the essence of God and the greatest of all commandments: love. Sabbath invites us to explore what it could look like, in the warp and woof of our daily lives, to expect to encounter and pursue love” (108).
Travis West has written the book on Sabbath we need right now. This is a book that teaches us to pursue and encounter love through the practice of cultivating a Sabbath posture. This book is designed to be read, re-read, and shared with others who have read it. The built-in questions and exercises at the end of each chapter invite interaction and experience. And that is what West hopes we have with this book. West desires that we have some experience with Sabbath that keeps us yearning for it to happen again. In the reading and engaging with this book, West offers himself as a guide to walk us through what may seem unfamiliar or even that which we may resist, and in so doing, provides the reader an invitation to an encounter we need–the delight and rest of real Sabbath.
3 Responses
Thank you, Ryan, for your insights in “The Sabbath Way: Making Room in Your Life for Rest, Connection, and Delight” by Travis West. I love it!
Deeply grateful for your generous and thoughtful review here, Ryan. Thank you so much!
Ryan, your fine review persuaded me. This book is one I need to read. Thank you!