General

Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives

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.

The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath

Widely-acclaimed author Mark Buchanan states that what we've really lost is "the rest of God-the rest God bestows and, with it, that part of Himself we can know only through stillness." Stillness as a virtue is a foreign concept in our society, but there is wisdom in God's own rhythm of work and rest. Jesus practiced Sabbath among those who had turned it into a dismal thing, a day for murmuring and finger-wagging, and He reminded them of the day's true purpose: liberation-to heal, to feed, to rescue, to celebrate, to lavish and relish life abundant.

With this book, Buchanan reminds us of this and gives practical advice for restoring the sabbath in our lives.

Walk With Y'Shua Through the Jewish Year

Holiday comes from the words Holy Day -- which always means something we want to remember and commemorate in a special way. Jesus did! When Jesus (Y'shua) was growing up in Nazareth, the cycle of Jewish holidays provided natural opportunities to grow in wisdom and stature in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52). Knowing and following the same cycle that He did will give our children, grandchildren and kids of all ages the opportunity to likewise grow. Your family will be blessed and enriched! This is a great resource for all those who love to learn and to teach. Fifteen Jewish holidays are explained with illustrations and examples, and a special place to record your family's celebration experience and create a living heirloom. From the staff of Jews for Jesus to you.

Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest

It's sad that we need a book to remind us of the importance of scheduling time to rest and worship. But because we can work, shop, achieve, and otherwise stay busy every hour of every day of the week, we do. The statement, "I am so busy" has become a frighteningly common lament, according to author Wayne Muller. Our perpetual state of busyness represents a war on our natural rhythms that demand quiet and renewal in order to be emotionally, spiritually, and creatively fertile.

Honoring the Sabbath need not be a commitment to a specific day of the week, explains Muller. In fact, it can be a yearlong retreat or a morning walk--"anything that preserves a visceral experience of life-giving nourishment and rest."

Far more than an interesting concept, this is a good read. Each chapter is provocative and fluid, with topics such as "Fear of Rest," "Dormancy," and "The Way of Enough." At the end of his chapters, Muller offers stories, poems, or practices that speak to the themes of the Sabbath. --Gail Hudson

It has become our standard greeting: "I'm so busy." Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, the 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.

Our relentless emphasis on success and productivity has become a form of violence, Muller says. We have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between effort and rest, doing and not doing. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance, longing for time with friends and family, longing for a moment to ourselves.

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. This consecrated time, Muller affirms, is available to all of us, regardless of our spiritual tradition. We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a sabbath afternoon, a sabbath hour, a sabbath walk. Sabbath time is time off the wheel, time when we take our hand from the plow and allow the essential goodness of creation to nourish our souls.

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. In Sabbath, he has given us a revolutionary tool for cultivating those necessary human qualities that grow only with time: wisdom, courage, honesty, generosity, healing, and love.

Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight (The Christian Practice of Everyday Life)

Sabbath is one day a week when we should rest from our otherwise harried lives, right? In Living the Sabbath, Norman Wirzba leads us to a much more holistic and rewarding understanding of Sabbath-keeping. Wirzba shows how Sabbath is ultimately about delight in the goodness that God has made--in everything we do, every day of the week. With practical examples, Wirzba unpacks what that means for our daily lives at work, in our homes, in our economies, in school, in our treatment of creation, and in church. This book will appeal to clergy and laypeople alike and to all who are seeking ways to discover the transformative power of Sabbath in their lives today.

Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting

A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays

This giant book gives an extensive look at the nine annual holidays Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles, Hanukkah, Purim and the weekly holidaythe Sabbath! You will learn the historical, agricultural, spiritual, and prophetic purposes of each holiday, showing how each points to Christ and creative ways to teach them to your children!

Contemplative by Design: Creating Quiet Spaces for Retreats, Workshops, Churches, and Personal Spaces

In our busy and fast-paced world, it is often difficult to find quiet spaces for rest. This book will support the reader in finding ways to intentionally set aside sacred space within the home, church, garden, retreat, or other settings. Included in this guide are detailed instructions for establishing such spaces, ways to use props such as artwork, plus a helpful and adaptable meditation guide for the space. The guided meditations within the text act as a link between the physical setting and the spiritual transformation that could occur in each space. This helpful design guide offers ways to create sabbath rest within the shelter of a small, intentionally set-aside sacred space.

Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time (The Practices of Faith Series)

In this spirituality of time, Dorothy Bass invites readers into a way of living in time that is alert to both contemporary pressures and rooted ancient wisdom. The celebrated editor of Practicing Our Faith asks hard questions about how our injurious attitude toward time has distorted our relationships with our innermost selves, with other people, with the natural world, and with God.

As an alternative to the rhetoric of management and mastery, Receiving the Day offers a language of attention, poetry, and celebration. Bass encourages us to reevaluate our understanding of the temporal and thereby to participate fully in the Christian practice of knowing time as God's gift. Embraced in this way, time need not be wrestled with each day. Instead, time becomes the habitation of blessing.

Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage As a Way of Life