Unsabbathed Culture

Recently, I start to view this period of my life as my sabbatical year. It’s a period of resting, ceasing, integrating, and preparing. I remember I spent a whole year in Hong Kong from June/2001-July/2002. I didn’t do much in that year. I spent a lot of time to do “nothing.” When I look back now, I realize that a lot of the things that I pondered, listened, and learned in that year have been deposited in my memory. For the past few years, whenever I felt arid and didn’t have much to offer, I tended to recycle what I learned in that year.

I borrowed a lot of lectures/talks on tapes from the church in Hong Kong in that year. I think I listened to at least 200 tapes. Whenever I came home, I played them. If they were good, I replayed and listened again. Sometimes, I just sat there and listened. Sometimes, I worked on something while I was listening. No matter what, I have been shaped by what I learned from those lectures/talks on tapes. I now realize that it was my sabbatical year.

In comparison with my other friends in Hong Kong at the time, I didn’t produce as the society expected me to. I was “useless” in a sense. Nevertheless, I believe that that year of “uselessness” prepared me for the upcoming 4 years and half seminary training. At the time, I felt lost. Yet, it was what I needed.

Eight years later, I reach a similar point in my life. The difference is that I am no longer an inexperienced young man waiting to conquer the Promised Land. Rather, I am a married man with good theological training and moderate experience. I sort of know what I can conquer and cannot conquer. Even though I know what I can conquer, I acknowledge and accept that I can only occupy a small piece of the Promised Land. Thus, any personal conquer without cooperating with the community is determined to be a failure. That I didn’t know. But I know that now.

This is my sabbatical year. It’s a period of waiting, integrating, resting, thinking, and learning to enjoy being in leisure. We live in the unsabbathed culture that we want a break from our works; we want to do something in our resting. We don’t enjoy working (Or we enjoy it too much?); we can’t rest in resting either. This is how we usually live our lives. Whatever we do, there is always a sense of absence—the absence of the self at the present moment. While we are here, we’re thinking about getting there. Once we get there, we want to get back here. From here to there, the self is usually absent.

In the period of waiting and resting, I want to become more aware of where I am and who I am. I learn to practice silence and solitude, for I know that they give birth to the true self, which is easily inundated by the surroundings.

In order to produce better (and more) fruits, the land must not be in use for a period of time. Is it the reason why the Bible has such a thing as sabbatical year for the land?

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

and in his word I hope;

my soul waits for the Lord

more than watchman for the morning,

more than watchmen for the morning.” (Ps. 130:5-6 ESV)