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| Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives | 
 enlarge | Author: Wayne Muller
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $2.75
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (16 reviews)
Sales Rank: 13200
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0553380117
Dewey Decimal Number: 291
EAN: 9780553380118
ASIN: 0553380117
Publication Date: September 5, 2000
Release Date: September 5, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In today's world, with its relentless emphasis on success and productivity, we have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between work and rest. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves.
Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, Wayne Muller, author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live?, shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal--a refuge for our souls.
We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 I Needed a Sabbath from Muller's "Sabbath" December 3, 2008
Reading Sabbath I was reminded of a time several years ago when there was a mandatory Clergy Days Apart for the denomination in which I serve. Word came down that we required to attend, and so I drove three hours (round trip) on my day off to attend a six-hour seminar where I was told that I needed to schedule time for myself. This book was more of the same - many hours were required to read a book which told me to schedule time to be alone with God.
I do not discount Muller's point, but it is well labored, and often repetitive. There is much in it which strikes me as new age mumbo-jumbo - "breathing seeds" comes to mind. Then there is his exercise statement on page 170: "In the evening, turn it over to the care of God, the angels, and all the Buddhas, all the spirits of the earth and sky." We are to be about the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and while I firmly believe in the work of angels among us, sky spirits, earth spirits, and Buddha are not members of the pantheon I worship.
I did appreciate the brief section on "Time." Well does Muller remind us that "with all the money in the world, and no time, we have nothing at all" (101).
His reference to Henri Nouwen's explanation of Jesus' three temptations was also valuable: "To be useful. To be important. And to be powerful" (174).
Muller writes, "If busyness can become a kind of violence, we do not have to stretch our perception very far to see that Sabbath time - effortless, nourishing rest - can invite a healing of this violence" (5), and "the practice of Sabbath is like the practice of taking refuge" (9). After reading Sabbath I felt like I needed a rest from Sabbath.
 If you're looking for a fresh perspective, you just found it. May 6, 2008
I absolutely fell in love with this book during the first two chapters. The points he brought out were exceptional. He also made a habit of offering suggestions for Sabbath practices or traditions at the end of every chapter (lighting candles, taking a Sabbath bath, making love, etc). Muller really brought the meaning of the "Sabbath" to life, and expounded on the importance of rest, rejuvenation and enjoyment. As he brought out, all life operates in the same pattern - work and rest. Yet sometimes we as humans think that we should be exempt from the need to rest and restore not only our bodies, but our emotional state as well, and we're headed for burnout if we don't correct our perspective.
That said, the rest of the book was a basic repetition of the earlier principals and I think the book could have been shorter and gotten the same (very valid) point across. Since he did expound so much, it almost makes the book very one-sided and unbalanced. I would recommend picking this up from the library and reading at least the first several chapters. It very well may challenge your perspective on the Sabbath.
 Sabbath October 23, 2007
A wonderful expression of the meaning of Sabbath. It has very practical ways in every chapter of how to live out what one has read and learned. It made me re-think what I do with my Sundays, weekends, and daily life. A real blessing, a wonderful book, and a must read for busy and weary people.
Sabbath October 2, 2007
This is a fabulous book. It gave me new insight into why Sabbath (rest) time is so important. It fed me with information that motivated me to change a few things in my life. Wayne Muller is a wonderful author who is interesting and inspiring.
Nourishment for the human spirit, using rest to return to delight September 3, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book arrived yesterday, and I stayed up late reading it last night and this morning. I could hardly put it down. Many of the thoughts hit me as so profound, that I had to pause to think before I could continue reading.
"In the relentless busyness of modern life, we have lost the rhythm between work and rest. All life requires a rhythm of rest." (p. 1) "When we live without listening to the timing of things -- when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest -- we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: NO LIVING THING LIVES LIKE THIS." (p. 69)
The book highlights the benefits of rest for our spirit, our bodies, our relationships -- as well as gives reasons why people don't rest. We feel that more work is better, we are afraid of what we will hear in the silences if we pause, we think we have more to give if we toil on without rest (when the opposite is often true, that rest breaks leave us with more to contribute). The book is also full of simple stories of people who have found themselves after rest, and simple thought-provoking poems. Muller also devotes some thoughts to simple play; and yes, even adults should play.
This book left me thinking of all that being an adult professional can cost the human spirit. Some of my own happiest memories are of being a child, sprawled on the grass on a hot summer afternoon, and staring up at the white clouds against a blue sky and finding shapes in the clouds. When do we ever do this, as a modern society? Simply pause, and spend a day doing nothing but play and rest?
Muller gives us some strong reasons to pause, to resort our values, to treasure our relationships and our bodies and spirits, and to go out again with more to offer our world.
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